[Interest] on bumping the minimum Android API level to Android 8.0 API 26

[Tuukka Turunen]

Hi,

“Supported” is a bit of a loaded term that can have at least the following meaning, depending upon how it is looked at:

  1.  When something technically works, it is “supported” to some extent
  2.  When something is tested in CI and release testing, some could consider calling that “supported”
  3.  If the issues found are actively fixed, many would say this item is “supported”
  4.  When customers with existing support agreement can request help from the technical support team, the item is “supported” for them

>From the viewpoint of https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/supported-platforms.html it is C (for all users) and D (for eligible commercial license holders) that are required to be Supported.

Meaning in regards of Android version below 8.0 usage with Qt 6.5 that until some upcoming NDK update makes it technically impossible to run on, users can still target these “unsupported” versions. User needs to do more testing, as there is no validation done for the release. When an issue is discovered, user needs to check if it happens also on a supported Android version. If it does not happen on a supported version on Android, it is unlikely that the issue gets fixed.

Same principles also for other platforms.

Yours,

                                Tuukka

From: Interest <interest-bounces at qt-project.org> on behalf of Maxim <maxim.bescherevnykh at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, 6. April 2023 at 0.36
To: interest at qt-project.org <interest at qt-project.org>
Subject: [Interest] on bumping the minimum Android API level to Android 8.0 API 26

Minimum supported API level recently raised from 21 (Qt 5.15) to 23 (Qt 6.0) then to 26 (Qt 6.5?) without details behind it, so possibility of deploying to devices with lower API level is unclean. I guess raising level 23 API may be caused by implementation of runtime permissons, but whats behind raising it to 26?

"While changes in CI are not being made at this stage, we need to move
forward with setting user's expectations that they can no longer rely on
Qt remains compatible with Android versions that are no longer
maintained by Google." https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtdoc/+/466788
What means no longer maintained by Google? Google supports development for wide range of Android API levels, their recent LTS NDK r25 still supports level 19+ API, they provide various 'Compat' classes for support lower APIs levels.

To favor focus of Qt on more recent Android versions, while still keeping possibility of building Qt applications for devices with lower API levels, i think there should be multiple documented minimal API levels:
-general minimal supported API level (e.g. 26) of Qt framework (favored in test configurations, bug priority, etc.)
-individual minimal API level requirements of Qt modules (e.g. for qtcore level 23 or maybe even lower in some cases)
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