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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] When to drop Qt 4 support and require Qt 5?

From: Jaap Keuter <jaap.keuter@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2018 19:49:39 +0100
> On 25 Jan 2018, at 15:56, Anders Broman <anders.broman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wireshark-dev [mailto:wireshark-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter Wu
> Sent: den 25 januari 2018 15:20
> To: Developer support list for Wireshark <wireshark-dev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Wireshark-dev] When to drop Qt 4 support and require Qt 5?
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Qt 4.8 has not been supported for two years now ("standard support"
> ended in December 2015,
> https://blog.qt.io/blog/2015/05/26/qt-4-8-7-released/). Is it feasible to drop support for Qt 4 and require Qt 5?
> 
> The development branch has apparently been broken for a while, I tried to patch it up here: https://code.wireshark.org/review/25469
> 
> Reasons not to drop Qt 4.8 support:
> 
> - RHEL/CentOS 6 by default do not have Qt 5, see
>   https://wiki.wireshark.org/Development/Support_library_version_tracking#RHEL.2FCentOS
> 
> Reasons to drop Qt 4.8 support:
> 
> - Reduce maintenance overhead (allow use of new Qt 5 features, use new
>   signal/slot syntax, ...).
> - Related to the above, dropping Qt 4 would enable simplification:
>   https://www.wireshark.org/lists/wireshark-dev/201712/msg00045.html
> - Upstream support has ended in December 2015.
> - We do not test it (not even compile testing), so bugs will sneak in.
> - macOS and Windows already require Qt 5.
> 
> It is probably too late for 2.6, but can we commit to this for the next version? Or can we already declare Qt 4 unsupported now?
> --
> 
> I'd vote for branching off 2.6 now and go all hog and require the latest stuff for everything.( e.g What's in SuSE 12.2 RedHat 7,? Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04).
> And/Or require Qt5 for 2.6, older systems can still use GTK. 
> /Anders


Hi,

Stig documented on January 13th a list of issues which should be attended too before branching of 2.6 would be prudent. I see that translation stuff is being addressed, the rest I haven’t looked at yet. Let’s seriously look at this list and come to a conclusion.

Thanks,
Jaap