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

[Hendrik Leppkes]

On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 2:26 PM, wm4 <nfxjfg at googlemail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>

End of Extended Support was April 8, 2014, but still already 3.5 years ago.

> 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).


Yes, absolutely.