[vlc-devel] [RFC] Dropping support for OS X 10.5

[SciFi]

On Aug 20, 2012, at 00:48, Jean-Baptiste Kempf wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 04:05:29PM -0500, SciFi wrote :
>> I should respond to your question here, tho.
> 
> I am afraid I don't see your point.
> VLC will be dropped for X.5, and as a consequence, for PPC.
> What we add is just dropping for pre-Core2 CPUs on X.6, which are quite
> rare, to be honest.
> 
> Everything else will run, including yours.

After sleeping on this, I think I am trying to forewarn about
all this droppage I'm seeing, collectively (not just VLC),
especially what Felix has said about dropping 10.6 in the
(possibly far) future.

It would take only a simple change of your decision to say
"not far, but sooner than thought", and simple patches, to
drop 10.6 as well.  I am having to trust your whims on this.
I _want_ to trust your whims on this.  So I shout.  See?  ;)

And I guess I am so concerned, in the collective manner,
and want this supposed onslaught to stop, such that it is
actually making me want to shout about it if for no other
reason than to add more to think about, before it can
"catch on" to other projects.  ;)


FWIW,
The EFI bitness is why "we" are being dropped in 10.8, but
also it's because so many other systems might not run on
32-bit EFI, either, unless those systems can bypass the EFI
somehow entirely.  (Already I cannot boot several of those
"live CDs" out there, so that I might try to choose an open
system I might want to run instead of OSX.  If I cannot boot
it up, I also cannot run that flavor of VLC and tons of
other apps for that system.  I say this to try proving why
EFI should be worried-about, but not directly in the VLC
code itself [can't affect booting problems etc. I know].)


> Stating that Apple policies are brain-dead and not respectful to the old
> userbase is not news and is off-topic from this mailing list.

Also FWIW,
I state Apple's policies because _they_ seem to be the _blame_
of why you-all must make these decisions, not just/only the
sheer number of those systems out there.  This is called
"reading between the lines".  Ergo it is at the base of why I
discuss it on this list.  I can't change their decision, but
let's say Apple had _not_ dropped 32-bit systems and those all
continue to work under 10.8 -- I am seriously wondering if
you-all would then still decide to do this?

But then the v2.0.x series of VLC will still be available for
them, since you-all will continue to keep it updated also,
if again I can trust your whims on this.  ;)  Plus, I'd say we
ought to ask volunteers to get involved with the older VLC code
(especially PPC) and to share that code for another branch be
placed somewhere if this task comes to that.  (This has already
happened to the PPC-Firefox project and others; if there were
not "that many" out there, I'd say these are a huge waste,
but obviously these _are_ useful projects still today.
For example, take a look on these _current_ PPC projects:
<http://www.floodgap.com/software/tenfourfox/>
<http://www.floodgap.com/software/> what else they are doing
<https://aurorafox.wordpress.com/>
…and more…)
(And let's not forget most other main open projects _still_ do
 support the 32-bit-only i?86 chips, such as Mozilla itself!)

["adding more to think about" again… ;) ]

> Best regards,

Thanks for letting me spout s'more.  ;)



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