[sldev] Thoughts regarding "OS X Panther support"

[Alissa Sabre]

Hi, all,

I read the following Linden blog entry:

Working on the Right Things (Considering OS X "Panther" Support)
http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/05/05/working-on-the-right-things-considering-os-x-panther-support/

Then two thoughts came in my mind.

First one is on the Windows 2000 support.

Isn't it possible to stop supporting pre-SP4 Windows 2000?

As some comments to the blog entry wrote, Windows 2000 is older than
MacOS X Panther.  I don't know how many residents log in with Windows
2000, but I guess the number is not very large.  Moreover, I believe
most of the existing Windows 2000 users have updated their OS to SP4
already.

Some of you may know that I'm working primarily on
internationalization and related area.  Windows 2000, especially its
US version, is terribly bad on internationalization and it always has
been a headache for internationalization programmers.  Windows 2000
itself provides a fair set of internationalization features, but most
of the internationalization components are designed as *optional*
parts.  And in US version of the first release of Windows 2000, most
of the internatinalization components are not installed as default,
and worse, some components are not included in Windows 2000 install CD
at all...

One example is IMM32.DLL, that provides interaction with input
methods.  It is included in all language versions of Windows 2000 but
not installed as default in US version.  So, under a typical install
of US users' Windows 2000, this DLL is missing from hard disks.  That
is the reason, when I wrote patch for VWR-250, I had to write
unnecessarily complicated dynamic loading of functions in IMM32,
making the resulting code harder to read.  (You can see essentially
the same code in linden/indra/llwindow/llwindowwin32.cpp of the recent
viewer source.)

THis is the background why I'm asking to stop supporting pre-SP4
Windows 2000.  As far as I know, Windows 2000 SP4 has no _problems_
regarding internationalization support.  For example, IMM32.DLL
discussed above is always installed on all language versions in SP4.
(I guess it was SP2 when the situation changed, but I'm not sure.)
Limitting support for Windows 2000 to SP4 only makes
internationalization programmers' life easier.

# I myself don't object if Lindens decide to stop supporting *ALL*
  Windows 2000, but that's not what I'm asking here.

Another one is on the relationship between Lindens' support policy and
the source code itself, or open source community's policy.  

Will we accept changes that facilitates MacOS X 10.3.9 only, after
the support for this version is discontinued?

My opinion is, we should do so, as long as the change doesn't harm
supported platforms.  "Support" is a sort of a commitment, especially
for a commercial company like LL.  Also, open source developers well
know that LL is always short-handed on development...  They can't
integrate a trivial one-line patch submitted on JIRA in timely
manner...  So, I understand and support the concern expressed in the
blog entry.

However, open source developers' activity is a different issue.  As
long as someone in the community finds a value to work on, I believe
we have no reason to stop him/her.  It is like adding Solaris specific
changes into the source tree.  LL dosn't officially support Solaris
port, but the source changes needed for Solaris are included in the
repository.  That's fine as long as it doesn't harm supported
platform.  I think the same policy applies on MacOS 10.3.9.

SL viewer may or may not run on MacOS 10.3.9.  LL doesn't provide any
support for 10.3.9 users.  Period.  This will be the LL's official
statement, even if the community keeps maintaining 10.3.9 compatibility
behind the scenes.

Of course, this discussion assumes someone in the sldev will work on
MacOS 10.3.9...  If nobody in the community have enthusiasm on it,
termination by LL means a true end of life on the version.  Are there
anybody who takes care of 10.3.9?

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