Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] 1.10 branch + release schedule

[Gerald Combs <gerald@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 4/19/13 3:23 PM, Andrew Hood wrote:
> Gerald Combs wrote:
> 
>> (Which reminds me - we need to set a schedule
>> for dropping Windows XP support.)
> 
> Despite M$ enthusiasm for not supporting XP it lives on on many systems
> which perform their assigned duties and don't have resources to run
> later versions. How practical would it be to create an XP fork for
> security only updates?

If the past is any indication that might be difficult. At one point a
security update broke Windows 2000 compatibility and it was a bit of a
struggle to work around it. Using that as a guide I predict the following:

1) Next February or March I'll migrate our Windows XP builder to Vista
and we will no longer automatically catch XP compatibility bugs.

2) Some time next spring we'll officially drop XP support. That is,
we'll pretend not to support it but still fix XP bugs while cursing
profusely.

3) Due to an unavoidable incompatibility we'll have to explicitly
disable XP in the installer and/or in the executables.

I'm not sure when item 3 will happen.