[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] [Vote] Drop Windows XP support

wm4 nfxjfg at googlemail.com
Thu Dec 14 15:26:31 EET 2017


I propose that FFmpeg sets the minimum supported Windows version to
Windows Vista (or maybe Windows 7). This would remove Windows XP
support.

The reason is that Windows XP does not provide certain convenient APIs,
in particular locking primitives that map well to pthread. There are
other problems, such as upstream projects dropping XP support, and
developers not being able to test.

Dropping it has advantages for us. For example, it would allow is to
rewrite the messy locking code for AVCodec registration, which has been
a topic recently.

Microsoft ended all support for Windows XP on January 31, 2009. That's
almost a decade ago. There is a lack of security updates, which makes
merely using Windows XP dangerous. There is no reason to put so much
effort into supporting an old, unsupported OS.

We should drop XP support, and allow unconditional use of Windows Vista
APIs.

I'm also casting an internal vote to probe for support (this vote is
meant for members of the FFmpeg voting committee only).

The subject of the vote is:

  Should we drop support for Windows XP starting in git master and the
  next FFmpeg major release?

Current release branches are explicitly unaffected.

My own vote on this issue is "yes" (assuming I still have a right for a
vote, I really don't know).


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