Thoughts on https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/dev/SupportPolicy

[grarpamp]

> Looks like I did not send this (rather old email) to the mailing list as
> intended. Since the discussion how far back an OS should be supported
> appears to remain live and well, here ya go:

I'm pretty much with Lucky on this one. Sure, off in some poor
repressed and constantly raided dark corner, there are going to be
those using antiques. Yet something tells me that there are always
internal communication channels and the important info will make
it up to couriers that are current. The world is growing up fast.

I'd feel pretty comfy in saying that as long as someone can plug
into the net, they're going to be doing it with something, as Lucky
says, no more than a major or two back, and current in that branch.
Not to mention simply being connected enables, umm, free major
release upgrades.

Given that, I think it's far better for projects to forge ahead
than be bogged down in the past. Especially ones that don't
speak directly to long lived hardware. ie: apps, not OS's.

Similar to the corporate quagmire example, take a look at OpenBSD.
Their release process and maintenance policy is ridiculously simple.
There's no way they could do what they do with such a small team
if they had to maintain a half dozen branches.

Which by the way, FreeBSD does do, largely out of some perceived
need to be excessively corporate friendly, and IMO it's hobbling
them a good bit.

I think XP SP3, vista and 7 is perfectly reasonable. Put the time
saved into other things.

Besides, XP is 10 years old. And by the time MS drops it, I'd bet
more of the world will making the decision to drop MS for open
systems.