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Subject: Re: Last Version of Cygwin for XP
From: Warren Young <wyml@etr-usa.com>
In-Reply-To: <56BCCE7D.6040605@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2016 12:20:22 -0700
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On Feb 11, 2016, at 11:10 AM, cyg Simple <cygsimple@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> A git tag would be helpful for LAST-XP supported version.

Easy to do, but I wonder how many people would use it?  I doubt there’s a lot of overlap between the group of people unwilling to upgrade their XP boxes and the group willing to install development tools, clone git repos, backport patches from trunk, and build local DLLs.

If there were a large overlap, Red Hat wouldn’t be raking in billions supporting 10-year-old Linux boxes.

That begs a question: Is there a market for a “Cygwin LTS” service, where someone does all that backporting for a tiny recalcitrant minority of Windows XP + Cygwin users?  Who knows, maybe there’s a new line of revenue there for Red Hat. :)

> There are certainly plenty of XP still being used that takes advantage of Cygwin.

I hope not.  Extended support ended nearly two years ago.  That’s 22 months of unfixed security problems, bugs, and regressions with respect to the state of the world.  (By the latter, I mean things like outdated time zone rules.)

The last time this topic came up, I came away with the impression that the only reason Cygwin hasn’t jettisoned XP support yet is that it’s more work than ignoring that old code.

Eventually, Cygwin’s gonna have to scrape that barnacle off the hull.  You should already have your Cygwin XP install trees packed up in anticipation of that day.

> The problem will be the other packages that stop support of older
> Cygwin versions.

That’s why you archive your installation tree.

And for those without that foresight and preparedness, there’s the Cygwin Time Machine.
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