[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] [RFC] avoid _vscnprintf since it exists only since WinXP.

Reimar Döffinger Reimar.Doeffinger at gmx.de
Sun Jul 22 22:15:01 CEST 2012


On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 03:59:05PM -0400, Derek Buitenhuis wrote:
> On 22/07/2012 3:53 PM, Reimar Döffinger wrote
> >> Why? Do we really support OSes that MS doesn't even support anymore?
> > 
> > Well, I see no reason not to try.
> 
> I think if it fills the code base with hacks or workarounds, or just
> lots of extra code, it's a waste of effort to support an already
> unsupported OS.

I disagree with it being a waste of effort, but I agree that the
level of extra effort/code needs to be very limited.
But I admit that I was curious about the code for a few other reasons
and I probably should have brought that up from the start.

> >> "Bawwwwwww this binary won't work on my OS from 12 years ago that isn't
> >> even supported by it's author!"
> > 
> > There's no need to be insulting. Obviously people are still using it,
> > and while I don't see them seriously complaining (reporting it seems
> > very reasonable since the MSDN docs are wrong) that's no reason
> > to not discuss simple solutions.
> > And we do support e.g. OS/2, BeOS/Haiku and a lot of other stuff that
> > I'm sure has fewer users than Win2k (there's a good chance there's
> > actually fewer Linux users out there than people using a Windows before
> > XP).
> 
> Sorry, I'll take off my troll hat.

Thanks. I felt compelled to complain about it because I am not aware of
anyone complaining in any unreasonable way, and I think we shouldn't
(seem to) be mean to people making requests in a reasonable tone even
if we in the end decide it's not a reasonable thing to implement.

> Reporting the doc issue to MS seems like
> a fine idea, though I have a feeling they will not give much of a care.
> 
> I'm not against supporting things that few people use, but I am against
> supporting things that its own author tells people not to use.

I don't see much reason give much weight to what Microsoft says:
they have lots of incentives to tell people not to use old versions
even when there's not good reason for it, plus when they make public
statements they must obviously think about the people not bright enough
to realize connecting something without security patches to the internet
is stupid. There's nothing seriously wrong with using Win2k on an
isolated machine as far as I know.
Not to mention that if I went by what e.g. Apple supports I wouldn't have
an OSX test system at all...


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