Re: [PATCH] Add IPv6 support for remote TCP connections

[Pedro Alves <palves at redhat dot com>]

On 03/23/2015 06:42 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2015 18:02:39 +0000
>> From: Pedro Alves <palves@redhat.com>
>> CC: gdb-patches@sourceware.org, ktietz@redhat.com, brobecker@adacore.com,
>>         fercerpav@gmail.com
>>
>>>> What older MS-Windows release
>>>> should be supported?  I guess MS-Windows 2000?  Do you mean it seriously?
>>>
>>> It's up to us to decide.  Emacs, for example, still supports Windows
>>> 98, per an explicit request from RMS, based on the large number of
>>> users of those systems in the 3rd World.
>>
>> Hmm, I couldn't find any statistic/report online that confirms this.
>> All I found puts worldwide Windows 9x usage <= 0.01%.
> 
> Yes, and now multiply that by the size of the population in, say,
> India, and see what you get.

The stats I saw showed usage at 0.01% resolution; it could well
have been 0.0000000000000000001% rounded up for all we know.

And factor in the amount of people that use Windows 9x _and_
develop for Windows 9x _and_ of those, those who develop for
Windows 9x using GNU tools.  We could well be talking about
0.01% x 0.00000001% x 0.00000001% and end up with a universe
of 1 person.  The point is we just don't know with the data
we have.

Note that by that reasoning, according to:

  http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0

we should also be supporting Windows 3.1.

Without more reliable usage info, this just feels like guessing.

But all in all, I think what matters most is whether we have
active maintainers working on making sure the code still builds
and works on such platforms, taking care of user reported bugs,
etc.  If no one actively cares (and I mean a continuous effort),
then the burden of keeping support for very old versions just
slows us down.  We already have enough bugs and missing gdb features
on mainstream Windows versions that nobody is really paying attention
to, let alone ancient Windows versions.  Don't get me
wrong -- I came into GDB from the Windows side, and I'd be
glad if the Windows port was improved.

> 
>> I don't think we should keep trying to remain compatible with
>> such old versions.
> 
> As I said, it's up to us.
> 
>> I'd actually be very surprised if indeed we still are, given
>> nobody's been really testing it.
> 
> It could very well be broken on these platforms, yes.

/me *nods*

> 
>> I think that people that still need to _develop_ for Windows 9x can
>> simply use an older GDB.
> 
> What about developing on latest versions of Windows, but debugging on
> Windows 9X? 
> There could be 9X-specific problems that might require
> that.  (I had such an experience with Emacs about 3 years ago, and the
> person who helped me debug the problem was using GDB 7.2 on a Windows
> 98 box.)

I wouldn't find it the end of the world to use GDB 7.2 then.  It should
still work just as well today as it did 3 years ago.

Thanks,
Pedro Alves