Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
On 28.09.2011 00:49, Michael Stahl wrote: On 27.09.2011 22:22, Rob Weir wrote: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) AFAIK OOo 3.x Windows baseline is NT 5.0 (Windows 2000); AFAIK this OS version is no longer supported by the vendor. And AFAIR Win 2000 was already dropped as a supported platform in OOo 3.3. All Win 9x Platforms already are not supported anymore since OOo 3.0. Besides that I still don't get why Windows versions are always discussed in the context of removing unicows.dll. I already wrote it, but again: this library was needed only in Win9x and this platform in no longer supported by OOo since 3.0. So unicows.dll can and should be removed. Whether or not AOOo will support WinXP SP2 or only SP3 is totally irrelevant in the discussion about unicows.dll. It might become more interesting when uwinapi.dll gets the focus. Getting rid of that library also would be highly desirable. Regards, Mathias
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
On 28.09.2011 21:03, Marcus (OOo) wrote: Yes, and as long as there are no real technical problems I don't see a need to drop the support. Indeed, and AFAIR dropping the support for any OS versions always was technically motivated at OOo. Of course technical motivations are debatable. Maintaining compatibility layers for OS versions that are as old as the hills IMHO *is* a technical problem. If the maintenance or the presence of the library has a negative impact on build system or code quality, the motivation to remove it grows with the age of the OS version and the shrinking user base. Regards, Mathias
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
Am 29.09.2011 20:17, schrieb Mathias Bauer: On 28.09.2011 00:49, Michael Stahl wrote: On 27.09.2011 22:22, Rob Weir wrote: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) AFAIK OOo 3.x Windows baseline is NT 5.0 (Windows 2000); AFAIK this OS version is no longer supported by the vendor. And AFAIR Win 2000 was already dropped as a supported platform in OOo 3.3. All Win 9x Platforms already are not supported anymore since OOo 3.0. Correction: for 3.3 we decided not to drop Win 200o officially, but in case problems should appear only on that platform we wouldn't fix them. That's kind of possible, but unsupported - do it at your own risk. Regards, Mathias
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
Am 09/29/2011 09:16 PM, schrieb Mathias Bauer: Am 29.09.2011 20:17, schrieb Mathias Bauer: On 28.09.2011 00:49, Michael Stahl wrote: On 27.09.2011 22:22, Rob Weir wrote: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) AFAIK OOo 3.x Windows baseline is NT 5.0 (Windows 2000); AFAIK this OS version is no longer supported by the vendor. And AFAIR Win 2000 was already dropped as a supported platform in OOo 3.3. All Win 9x Platforms already are not supported anymore since OOo 3.0. Correction: for 3.3 we decided not to drop Win 200o officially, but in case problems should appear only on that platform we wouldn't fix them. That's kind of possible, but unsupported - do it at your own risk. OK, good to know. Then I would say lets keep it for 3.4 with the same do it on your own risk statement and for the future we have to discuss if there is a technical reason to drop the support (as you wrote in another mail, Mathias). Marcus
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 10:22 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: I'd recommend supporting Windows XP and beyond. XP is officially supported by Microsoft until April 2014. I'm certainly not making any effort to maintain or test support for earlier versions. Of course, that doesn't prevent anyone else from testing and patching to support earlier versions. yes i think WinXP is a good and appropriate baseline. We have enough to do with newer systems when in think for example in the direction of 64 bit. Juergen
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 8:46 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: I don't think the vendor support lifetime for a consumer OS has bring the end of application support on that OS. What is known is that there will be further service packs, maybe not even OS security patches, but it isn't as if they decay and die. Many machines run much longer than the support life of the OS, and upgrades may not be feasible. The nice thing is a user of Windows 98 or 2000 can still download old versions of OOo and run them. And they can do that for free. And they always will be able to do this. The question is not whether we retroactively support for older versions of Windows. They question is whether we maintain that support going forward, in new releases of the product. Outgrowing the size of machine that an older OS runs on (and might be limited to) is a different matter, as is relying on API functions that are not supported that far back. I don't have an opinion about the Win2k versus Windows XP SP2+ choice for OOo. I am just curious to know what the current platform boundaries are and might become for purposes of QA. - Dennis -Original Message- From: Michael Stahl [mailto:m...@openoffice.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 15:50 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 On 27.09.2011 22:22, Rob Weir wrote: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) AFAIK OOo 3.x Windows baseline is NT 5.0 (Windows 2000); AFAIK this OS version is no longer supported by the vendor. I'd recommend supporting Windows XP and beyond. XP is officially supported by Microsoft until April 2014. I'm certainly not making any effort to maintain or test support for earlier versions. Of course, that doesn't prevent anyone else from testing and patching to support earlier versions. no objection from me to raising the baseline to WindowsXP; IMHO trying to support an OS that the vendor doesn't support any more doesn't make sense.
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
Am 09/28/2011 01:39 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 8:46 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: I don't think the vendor support lifetime for a consumer OS has bring the end of application support on that OS. What is known is that there will be further service packs, maybe not even OS security patches, but it isn't as if they decay and die. Many machines run much longer than the support life of the OS, and upgrades may not be feasible. +1 I don't see a direct need to drop any OS support only because it is to old or it seems to be. To point to Microsoft and tell the users they don't support it anymore, so we drop the support too isn't a good argument. When we leave the baseline at Windows 2000 (or whereever it is at the moment) and tell the user we can give a guarantee (don't take this word to seriously ;-) ) for WinXP and newer, it should be OK. Then there is still a possibility to get it installed and started on Win2000. The nice thing is a user of Windows 98 or 2000 can still download old versions of OOo and run them. And they can do that for free. And they always will be able to do this. The question is not whether we retroactively support for older versions of Windows. They question is whether we maintain that support going forward, in new releases of the product. Yes, and as long as there are no real technical problems I don't see a need to drop the support. If there *is already* or *will be* a technical limitation (e.g., API things or system integration) that is a hurdle for going on in supporting newer Win versions, then we have a good reason to drop the support for older versions. Otherwise IMHO not. Marcus Outgrowing the size of machine that an older OS runs on (and might be limited to) is a different matter, as is relying on API functions that are not supported that far back. I don't have an opinion about the Win2k versus Windows XP SP2+ choice for OOo. I am just curious to know what the current platform boundaries are and might become for purposes of QA. - Dennis -Original Message- From: Michael Stahl [mailto:m...@openoffice.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 15:50 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 On 27.09.2011 22:22, Rob Weir wrote: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) AFAIK OOo 3.x Windows baseline is NT 5.0 (Windows 2000); AFAIK this OS version is no longer supported by the vendor. I'd recommend supporting Windows XP and beyond. XP is officially supported by Microsoft until April 2014. I'm certainly not making any effort to maintain or test support for earlier versions. Of course, that doesn't prevent anyone else from testing and patching to support earlier versions. no objection from me to raising the baseline to WindowsXP; IMHO trying to support an OS that the vendor doesn't support any more doesn't make sense.
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
Am 09/28/2011 09:13 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 3:03 PM, Marcus (OOo)marcus.m...@wtnet.de wrote: Am 09/28/2011 01:39 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 8:46 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.orgwrote: I don't think the vendor support lifetime for a consumer OS has bring the end of application support on that OS. What is known is that there will be further service packs, maybe not even OS security patches, but it isn't as if they decay and die. Many machines run much longer than the support life of the OS, and upgrades may not be feasible. +1 I don't see a direct need to drop any OS support only because it is to old or it seems to be. To point to Microsoft and tell the users they don't support it anymore, so we drop the support too isn't a good argument. When we leave the baseline at Windows 2000 (or whereever it is at the moment) and tell the user we can give a guarantee (don't take this word to seriously ;-) ) for WinXP and newer, it should be OK. Then there is still a possibility to get it installed and started on Win2000. The nice thing is a user of Windows 98 or 2000 can still download old versions of OOo and run them. And they can do that for free. And they always will be able to do this. The question is not whether we retroactively support for older versions of Windows. They question is whether we maintain that support going forward, in new releases of the product. Yes, and as long as there are no real technical problems I don't see a need to drop the support. If there *is already* or *will be* a technical limitation (e.g., API things or system integration) that is a hurdle for going on in supporting newer Win versions, then we have a good reason to drop the support for older versions. In reality it works like this: The moment we stop making the proactive effort to test on a platform, the experience of users on that platform will start to degrade. It will degrade over time until it totally fails. So the question is not really about a deliberate effort to drop support for older versions of Windows. The question is whether there are volunteers willing to test and patch the build to support older versions of Windows. If not, then that fact -- not our words -- will determine what versions of Windows are actually supported. Thats the point where I wrote that we (officialyl) support WinXP and newer but it should be still possible to install on older version. Yes, we leave these users a bit alone. However, as long as it's still working it's fine. When we someday come to the point where we have to change something to support the newer Win versions better, then we really have to do drop the support. When the user reports a problem in Win2000 then we should try to look it up and think of a fix. When it's easy then, ok, do it. Otherwise it's maybe the start of the end of supporting the older versions. Marcus Outgrowing the size of machine that an older OS runs on (and might be limited to) is a different matter, as is relying on API functions that are not supported that far back. I don't have an opinion about the Win2k versus Windows XP SP2+ choice for OOo. I am just curious to know what the current platform boundaries are and might become for purposes of QA. - Dennis -Original Message- From: Michael Stahl [mailto:m...@openoffice.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 15:50 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 On 27.09.2011 22:22, Rob Weir wrote: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.orgwrote: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) AFAIK OOo 3.x Windows baseline is NT 5.0 (Windows 2000); AFAIK this OS version is no longer supported by the vendor. I'd recommend supporting Windows XP and beyond. XP is officially supported by Microsoft until April 2014. I'm certainly not making any effort to maintain or test support for earlier versions. Of course, that doesn't prevent anyone else from testing and patching to support earlier versions. no objection from me to raising the baseline to WindowsXP; IMHO trying to support an OS that the vendor doesn't support any more doesn't make sense.
RE: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
Marcus, I share your thinking about this. If you or Oliver or someone can put a recent successful trial build where I can get my hands on the installer version, I will be happy to perform platform-confirmation installs. This would help me set up a routine for doing that kind of QA in the future. (For different internationalization variations, I can't do that alone and there needs to be help from the NL community.) - Dennis MY THINKING I agree a smoke test against Windows 2000 and even Windows 98 would be good. It would be useful if the colleague here who still has a Windows 95 installation could confirm some things too. If there is a dependency on a newer API entry, that typically shows up at load time or shortly thereafter. I suspect Unicode retrofitting will be the deal breaker, but it is useful to find out and to let users know. The other prospect is if there is dependency on a JVM or even VC++ RTL that is not supported that far back. If an artificial cut-off can be avoided, that is a good thing. It is necessary to do some sort of minimal testing to see if the current install works or not, and if it doesn't, what users who try it should expect. I am happy to test for that. It is within my competence and, I believe, the capabilities of the Windows 7 Virtual PC. - Dennis -Original Message- From: Marcus (OOo) [mailto:marcus.m...@wtnet.de] Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 12:04 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 Am 09/28/2011 01:39 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 8:46 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: I don't think the vendor support lifetime for a consumer OS has bring the end of application support on that OS. What is known is that there will be further service packs, maybe not even OS security patches, but it isn't as if they decay and die. Many machines run much longer than the support life of the OS, and upgrades may not be feasible. +1 I don't see a direct need to drop any OS support only because it is to old or it seems to be. To point to Microsoft and tell the users they don't support it anymore, so we drop the support too isn't a good argument. When we leave the baseline at Windows 2000 (or whereever it is at the moment) and tell the user we can give a guarantee (don't take this word to seriously ;-) ) for WinXP and newer, it should be OK. Then there is still a possibility to get it installed and started on Win2000. The nice thing is a user of Windows 98 or 2000 can still download old versions of OOo and run them. And they can do that for free. And they always will be able to do this. The question is not whether we retroactively support for older versions of Windows. They question is whether we maintain that support going forward, in new releases of the product. Yes, and as long as there are no real technical problems I don't see a need to drop the support. If there *is already* or *will be* a technical limitation (e.g., API things or system integration) that is a hurdle for going on in supporting newer Win versions, then we have a good reason to drop the support for older versions. Otherwise IMHO not. Marcus Outgrowing the size of machine that an older OS runs on (and might be limited to) is a different matter, as is relying on API functions that are not supported that far back. I don't have an opinion about the Win2k versus Windows XP SP2+ choice for OOo. I am just curious to know what the current platform boundaries are and might become for purposes of QA. - Dennis -Original Message- From: Michael Stahl [mailto:m...@openoffice.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 15:50 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 On 27.09.2011 22:22, Rob Weir wrote: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) AFAIK OOo 3.x Windows baseline is NT 5.0 (Windows 2000); AFAIK this OS version is no longer supported by the vendor. I'd recommend supporting Windows XP and beyond. XP is officially supported by Microsoft until April 2014. I'm certainly not making any effort to maintain or test support for earlier versions. Of course, that doesn't prevent anyone else from testing and patching to support earlier versions. no objection from me to raising the baseline to WindowsXP; IMHO trying to support an OS that the vendor doesn't support any more doesn't make sense.
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
Am 09/28/2011 11:56 PM, schrieb Dennis E. Hamilton: Marcus, I share your thinking about this. If you or Oliver or someone can put a recent successful trial build where I can get my hands on the installer version, I will be happy to perform platform-confirmation installs. This would help me set up a routine for doing that kind of QA in the future. (For different internationalization variations, I can't do that alone and there needs to be help from the NL community.) I'm not a developer nor have I tried to build OOo from source for myself. (yes, I know, shame on me. ;-( ) However, I can offer some help to get some basic tests done for Win2000. A running version in a VM should be enough. MY THINKING I agree a smoke test against Windows 2000 and even Windows 98 would be good. It would be useful if the colleague here who still has a Windows 95 installation could confirm some things too. I remember that some code parts were deleted for supporting Win95/98/ME in the past. So, I'm pretty sure that it will not work on these Win versions. So, please correct me if I'm wrong but when we speak about supporting older versions than WinXP it's only Win2000 we speak about. Marcus If there is a dependency on a newer API entry, that typically shows up at load time or shortly thereafter. I suspect Unicode retrofitting will be the deal breaker, but it is useful to find out and to let users know. The other prospect is if there is dependency on a JVM or even VC++ RTL that is not supported that far back. If an artificial cut-off can be avoided, that is a good thing. It is necessary to do some sort of minimal testing to see if the current install works or not, and if it doesn't, what users who try it should expect. I am happy to test for that. It is within my competence and, I believe, the capabilities of the Windows 7 Virtual PC. - Dennis -Original Message- From: Marcus (OOo) [mailto:marcus.m...@wtnet.de] Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 12:04 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 Am 09/28/2011 01:39 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 8:46 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: I don't think the vendor support lifetime for a consumer OS has bring the end of application support on that OS. What is known is that there will be further service packs, maybe not even OS security patches, but it isn't as if they decay and die. Many machines run much longer than the support life of the OS, and upgrades may not be feasible. +1 I don't see a direct need to drop any OS support only because it is to old or it seems to be. To point to Microsoft and tell the users they don't support it anymore, so we drop the support too isn't a good argument. When we leave the baseline at Windows 2000 (or whereever it is at the moment) and tell the user we can give a guarantee (don't take this word to seriously ;-) ) for WinXP and newer, it should be OK. Then there is still a possibility to get it installed and started on Win2000. The nice thing is a user of Windows 98 or 2000 can still download old versions of OOo and run them. And they can do that for free. And they always will be able to do this. The question is not whether we retroactively support for older versions of Windows. They question is whether we maintain that support going forward, in new releases of the product. Yes, and as long as there are no real technical problems I don't see a need to drop the support. If there *is already* or *will be* a technical limitation (e.g., API things or system integration) that is a hurdle for going on in supporting newer Win versions, then we have a good reason to drop the support for older versions. Otherwise IMHO not. Marcus Outgrowing the size of machine that an older OS runs on (and might be limited to) is a different matter, as is relying on API functions that are not supported that far back. I don't have an opinion about the Win2k versus Windows XP SP2+ choice for OOo. I am just curious to know what the current platform boundaries are and might become for purposes of QA. - Dennis -Original Message- From: Michael Stahl [mailto:m...@openoffice.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 15:50 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 On 27.09.2011 22:22, Rob Weir wrote: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) AFAIK OOo 3.x Windows baseline is NT 5.0 (Windows 2000); AFAIK this OS version is no longer supported by the vendor. I'd recommend
RE: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
The only reason for testing the installer on Win32 platforms older than Windows 2000 is to find out how they fail. If they don't fail that is interesting too, but I understand it is not part of any agreed support. If they fail, they won't be fixed. I guess Oliver is our source for fresh Windows builds to try testing. - Dennis Funny, I just assumed you were a developer. That's probably because I am a long way from having been a professional developer. Umm, well, 3-4 years but there are giant gaps between developer gigs (e.g., 15 years before, then 10 years before that, etc.) -Original Message- From: Marcus (OOo) [mailto:marcus.m...@wtnet.de] Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 15:42 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 Am 09/28/2011 11:56 PM, schrieb Dennis E. Hamilton: Marcus, I share your thinking about this. If you or Oliver or someone can put a recent successful trial build where I can get my hands on the installer version, I will be happy to perform platform-confirmation installs. This would help me set up a routine for doing that kind of QA in the future. (For different internationalization variations, I can't do that alone and there needs to be help from the NL community.) I'm not a developer nor have I tried to build OOo from source for myself. (yes, I know, shame on me. ;-( ) However, I can offer some help to get some basic tests done for Win2000. A running version in a VM should be enough. MY THINKING I agree a smoke test against Windows 2000 and even Windows 98 would be good. It would be useful if the colleague here who still has a Windows 95 installation could confirm some things too. I remember that some code parts were deleted for supporting Win95/98/ME in the past. So, I'm pretty sure that it will not work on these Win versions. So, please correct me if I'm wrong but when we speak about supporting older versions than WinXP it's only Win2000 we speak about. Marcus If there is a dependency on a newer API entry, that typically shows up at load time or shortly thereafter. I suspect Unicode retrofitting will be the deal breaker, but it is useful to find out and to let users know. The other prospect is if there is dependency on a JVM or even VC++ RTL that is not supported that far back. If an artificial cut-off can be avoided, that is a good thing. It is necessary to do some sort of minimal testing to see if the current install works or not, and if it doesn't, what users who try it should expect. I am happy to test for that. It is within my competence and, I believe, the capabilities of the Windows 7 Virtual PC. - Dennis -Original Message- From: Marcus (OOo) [mailto:marcus.m...@wtnet.de] Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 12:04 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 Am 09/28/2011 01:39 PM, schrieb Rob Weir: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 8:46 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: I don't think the vendor support lifetime for a consumer OS has bring the end of application support on that OS. What is known is that there will be further service packs, maybe not even OS security patches, but it isn't as if they decay and die. Many machines run much longer than the support life of the OS, and upgrades may not be feasible. +1 I don't see a direct need to drop any OS support only because it is to old or it seems to be. To point to Microsoft and tell the users they don't support it anymore, so we drop the support too isn't a good argument. When we leave the baseline at Windows 2000 (or whereever it is at the moment) and tell the user we can give a guarantee (don't take this word to seriously ;-) ) for WinXP and newer, it should be OK. Then there is still a possibility to get it installed and started on Win2000. The nice thing is a user of Windows 98 or 2000 can still download old versions of OOo and run them. And they can do that for free. And they always will be able to do this. The question is not whether we retroactively support for older versions of Windows. They question is whether we maintain that support going forward, in new releases of the product. Yes, and as long as there are no real technical problems I don't see a need to drop the support. If there *is already* or *will be* a technical limitation (e.g., API things or system integration) that is a hurdle for going on in supporting newer Win versions, then we have a good reason to drop the support for older versions. Otherwise IMHO not. Marcus Outgrowing the size of machine that an older OS runs on (and might be limited to) is a different matter, as is relying on API functions that are not supported that far back. I don't have an opinion about the Win2k versus Windows XP SP2+ choice for OOo. I am just curious
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
Is anyone else building on Windows right now? If not, we have a logistical problem. Oliver is not a committer, but he is producing a good number of patches for the Windows build that no one else seems to be testing and integrating. I can think of two ways of solving this problem. -Rob On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Oliver-Rainer Wittmann orwittm...@googlemail.com wrote: Hi, I have created a patch to remove the Window build requirement on unicows.dll - see issue 88652 https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=88652 The patch contains already the patch which c...@openoffice.org (Caolan McNamara) has provided and attached to this issue. Can someone please review and test the patch and commit it to the reprository. Thanks in advance, Oliver.
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:56 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: Is anyone else building on Windows right now? If not, we have a logistical problem. Oliver is not a committer, but he is producing a good number of patches for the Windows build that no one else seems to be testing and integrating. I can think of two ways of solving this problem. i am building on windows as well at the moment but have more or less the same configuration as Oliver and i was waiting for somebody else with a different system who would test it. I will test it tomorrow. Juergen -Rob On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Oliver-Rainer Wittmann orwittm...@googlemail.com wrote: Hi, I have created a patch to remove the Window build requirement on unicows.dll - see issue 88652 https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=88652 The patch contains already the patch which c...@openoffice.org (Caolan McNamara) has provided and attached to this issue. Can someone please review and test the patch and commit it to the reprository. Thanks in advance, Oliver.
RE: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
I believe it has been mentioned, but I am not clear on what the precise conclusion is: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) From there I think the low end of the range of configurations to test Windows installs on is determined. I know one dev who still has Windows 95 and Office 6.0/97 running. I can probably smoke test in a VM with Windows 98 SE, if I still have a disk somewhere. I can try Windows 2000 also, but nothing older than those.) What I won't want to do is builds. But if someone has a build I can do simple install-success/-fail tests. - Dennis Afterthoughts: (Of course it might install on an unsupported version, which is useful to know but not essential. It might be more useful to know how installation fails on versions older than the oldest supported version.) I can think of more than two ways to solve Oliver's dilemma. Rather than counting the ways, it is perhaps more relevant to determine whether this project has the process capability to support a Windows release and, if not, whether and how to obtain it. Scary thoughts. -Original Message- From: Jürgen Schmidt [mailto:jogischm...@googlemail.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 08:48 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:56 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: Is anyone else building on Windows right now? If not, we have a logistical problem. Oliver is not a committer, but he is producing a good number of patches for the Windows build that no one else seems to be testing and integrating. I can think of two ways of solving this problem. i am building on windows as well at the moment but have more or less the same configuration as Oliver and i was waiting for somebody else with a different system who would test it. I will test it tomorrow. Juergen -Rob On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Oliver-Rainer Wittmann orwittm...@googlemail.com wrote: Hi, I have created a patch to remove the Window build requirement on unicows.dll - see issue 88652 https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=88652 The patch contains already the patch which c...@openoffice.org (Caolan McNamara) has provided and attached to this issue. Can someone please review and test the patch and commit it to the reprository. Thanks in advance, Oliver.
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: I believe it has been mentioned, but I am not clear on what the precise conclusion is: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) From there I think the low end of the range of configurations to test Windows installs on is determined. I know one dev who still has Windows 95 and Office 6.0/97 running. I can probably smoke test in a VM with Windows 98 SE, if I still have a disk somewhere. I can try Windows 2000 also, but nothing older than those.) What I won't want to do is builds. But if someone has a build I can do simple install-success/-fail tests. I'd recommend supporting Windows XP and beyond. XP is officially supported by Microsoft until April 2014. I'm certainly not making any effort to maintain or test support for earlier versions. Of course, that doesn't prevent anyone else from testing and patching to support earlier versions. - Dennis Afterthoughts: (Of course it might install on an unsupported version, which is useful to know but not essential. It might be more useful to know how installation fails on versions older than the oldest supported version.) I can think of more than two ways to solve Oliver's dilemma. Rather than counting the ways, it is perhaps more relevant to determine whether this project has the process capability to support a Windows release and, if not, whether and how to obtain it. Scary thoughts. -Original Message- From: Jürgen Schmidt [mailto:jogischm...@googlemail.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 08:48 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:56 PM, Rob Weir robw...@apache.org wrote: Is anyone else building on Windows right now? If not, we have a logistical problem. Oliver is not a committer, but he is producing a good number of patches for the Windows build that no one else seems to be testing and integrating. I can think of two ways of solving this problem. i am building on windows as well at the moment but have more or less the same configuration as Oliver and i was waiting for somebody else with a different system who would test it. I will test it tomorrow. Juergen -Rob On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Oliver-Rainer Wittmann orwittm...@googlemail.com wrote: Hi, I have created a patch to remove the Window build requirement on unicows.dll - see issue 88652 https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=88652 The patch contains already the patch which c...@openoffice.org (Caolan McNamara) has provided and attached to this issue. Can someone please review and test the patch and commit it to the reprository. Thanks in advance, Oliver.
Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
Am 09/27/2011 10:08 PM, schrieb Dennis E. Hamilton: I believe it has been mentioned, but I am not clear on what the precise conclusion is: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) OOo 3.3.0 (or 3.x in general) see here: http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/sys_reqs_30.html OOo 3.4-dev: I don't know of any changes. AOO 3.4: Hm, no release yet. Let's discuss/decide what we want. ;-) From there I think the low end of the range of configurations to test Windows installs on is determined. I know one dev who still has Windows 95 and Office 6.0/97 running. I can probably smoke test in a VM with Windows 98 SE, if I still have a disk somewhere. I can try Windows 2000 also, but nothing older than those.) What I won't want to do is builds. But if someone has a build I can do simple install-success/-fail tests. - Dennis Afterthoughts: (Of course it might install on an unsupported version, which is useful to know but not essential. It might be more useful to know how installation fails on versions older than the oldest supported version.) I can think of more than two ways to solve Oliver's dilemma. Rather than counting the ways, it is perhaps more relevant to determine whether this project has the process capability to support a Windows release and, if not, whether and how to obtain it. Scary thoughts. As long as someone can build and someone can test the release versions it should be possible. Marcus -Original Message- From: Jürgen Schmidt [mailto:jogischm...@googlemail.com] Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 08:48 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:56 PM, Rob Weirrobw...@apache.org wrote: Is anyone else building on Windows right now? If not, we have a logistical problem. Oliver is not a committer, but he is producing a good number of patches for the Windows build that no one else seems to be testing and integrating. I can think of two ways of solving this problem. i am building on windows as well at the moment but have more or less the same configuration as Oliver and i was waiting for somebody else with a different system who would test it. I will test it tomorrow. Juergen -Rob On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Oliver-Rainer Wittmann orwittm...@googlemail.com wrote: Hi, I have created a patch to remove the Window build requirement on unicows.dll - see issue 88652 https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=88652 The patch contains already the patch which c...@openoffice.org (Caolan McNamara) has provided and attached to this issue. Can someone please review and test the patch and commit it to the reprository. Thanks in advance, Oliver.
RE: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652
I don't think the vendor support lifetime for a consumer OS has bring the end of application support on that OS. What is known is that there will be further service packs, maybe not even OS security patches, but it isn't as if they decay and die. Many machines run much longer than the support life of the OS, and upgrades may not be feasible. Outgrowing the size of machine that an older OS runs on (and might be limited to) is a different matter, as is relying on API functions that are not supported that far back. I don't have an opinion about the Win2k versus Windows XP SP2+ choice for OOo. I am just curious to know what the current platform boundaries are and might become for purposes of QA. - Dennis -Original Message- From: Michael Stahl [mailto:m...@openoffice.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2011 15:50 To: ooo-dev@incubator.apache.org Subject: Re: [patch] Removal of Windows build requirement on unicows.dll - issue 88652 On 27.09.2011 22:22, Rob Weir wrote: On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Dennis E. Hamilton dennis.hamil...@acm.org wrote: What is the oldest Windows OS version that Apache OOo 3.4(-dev) will be supported on? How does that compare with the oldest Windows OS version that the last stable release (3.3.0?) of OpenOffice.org is supported on? (If there is a JRE dependency, that is another variant to consider.) AFAIK OOo 3.x Windows baseline is NT 5.0 (Windows 2000); AFAIK this OS version is no longer supported by the vendor. I'd recommend supporting Windows XP and beyond. XP is officially supported by Microsoft until April 2014. I'm certainly not making any effort to maintain or test support for earlier versions. Of course, that doesn't prevent anyone else from testing and patching to support earlier versions. no objection from me to raising the baseline to WindowsXP; IMHO trying to support an OS that the vendor doesn't support any more doesn't make sense.
