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RE: Dropping official 9x support


-----Original Message-----
>From: cgf
>Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 1:23 PM
>To: Cygwin-Developers ML
>Subject: Re: Dropping official 9x support
>
>
>On Wed, Jul 12, 2006 at 09:49:21AM -0700, Brian Dessent wrote:
>>Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>
>>> Somebody (as in "somebody else", not cgf or me) will look into any
>>> upcoming 9x problems and will try to fix them.  cgf and me will not
>>> grant any concessions to 9x when implementing new code, we will not make
>>> any tests on 9x and we will not at all try to find the reason why the
>>> code doesn't work on it.  Maybe for lots of money, but not just so.
>>>
>>> Any volunteer or anybody with a better idea?  If not, 1.5.21 will be
>>> the last release which is supposed to work on 9x.  Serves it right.
>>
I could probably rig up a *REALLY* old and stinking computer that has just
been dumped, just as long as it can run Windows 98SE.  Problem is, I might
not do it, since I got lots of other stuff to do.  The VM thing, well,
*BOTH* of my hard drives (C:;D:) are pratically filled.  I can't get rid of
any stuff, since all the stuff is useful to myself.

>>So in essence this boils down to "it should probably continue to work OK
>>(in the short term at least) but if a change breaks it we won't fix it
>>unless someone debugs and submits a patch that passes muster"?  That's
>>certainly more than fine by me, I just hope you have your asbestos suits
>>prepared for the deluge of "me have 486 run windows 95, me want cygwin".
>
>The thing that prompted this is that right now 1.5.22 is broken on
>Windows 98.
>
Dropping support on DOS Kernel for 1.5.22-* is a good thing, if you are
introducing new features.  You can take Firefox 3.0 (Minefield) for example,
that there is no pre-2000 support.  One of the reasons was Cairo.

>One thing always bothers me about dropping 9x support - the breakage that
>is uncovered there also reflects real problems or stupid assumptions about
>the way windows work.  So as much as I detest keeping Cygwin working on
>Windows 9x, it does have some benefits for NT+ class systems.  I'm just
>not sure if the benefits outweigh the problems however.
>
>cgf
>

Good thing that you guys aren't gonna make the same controversy that Mozilla
made about Firefox 2.0 and 3.0's compatibility.  It's good that 1.5.21-* is
a forewarning to DOS Kernel (Windows 95, 98, 98SE, ME) users that 1.5.22-*
is going to be incompatible with their OS.

I think we should keep discussing this matter until 1.5.22-* is actually
rolled out, and then the verdict will be in...for good.

Charli


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