[Interest] [Development] Windows 7 support will be dropped in Qt 6

[Konrad Rosenbaum]

On 2020-06-13 03:22, Thiago Macieira wrote:
> On Friday, 12 June 2020 05:01:17 PDT Roland Hughes wrote:
>> You can't drop an OS as long as there are paying customers for it.
> Sure they can. But as a consequence, those customers may stop paying for it.
...and may never return.
>> Real business needs a 15-30 year LTS, not 5.
> How do you define "real business"? How about by revenue or market 
> capitalisation? The biggest companies on the planet (Apple, Amazon, Microsoft) 
> don't support your assertion. The top one (Apple) gives 2 years of support.
>
> Their success validates their business model.

So far so correct. But do I care about their market capitalization?
Since we are not talking about investment banking I'd dare say: no.

How about "Willingness to pay for products or support"?

In that regard Apple and Microsoft rank very low - they are almost pure
software suppliers, not customers. Amazon may buy some support, but
AFAIK they do most of it in-house.

So who pays lots of money for Qt-based products and support?

All kinds of industry who have to maintain expensive machines (big
players may be names like Intel, TSMC, GE, GM, GSK, ...). Vendors who
create higher-level Qt products and support companies surrounding these.
Companies producing entertainment products that will be Qt based. Etc.

While you will find a lot of companies that want the newest and hippest
features on the newest OSes, you will also find quite a few behemoths
who are willing to toss large sums after very old systems.

Here is a challenge for you Thiago: on Monday contact the manufacturing
side of your company and ask them for a clean room tour in one of
Intel's many fabs - once there take a very close look at the control
screens of the machines in there, note the systems they are running.


    Konrad


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