[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH 2/2] Require compilers to support C17.

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Mon, Feb 5, 2024 at 3:31 PM Anton Khirnov <anton at khirnov.net> wrote:
>
> Quoting Devin Heitmueller (2024-02-05 21:13:22)
> > On Mon, Feb 5, 2024 at 2:59 PM Anton Khirnov <anton at khirnov.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > It should be available in all relevant modern compilers and will allow
> > > us to use features like anonymous unions.
> >
> > Is everybody on board with the implications for this patch in terms of
> > platforms we allow building on?  For example, the gcc on Centos7
> > doesn't support C17, and that isn't *that* old of a platform.
>
> According to Wikipedia, it's almost 10 years old. That counts as *that*
> old in my book. If someone really needs current ffmpeg on such a
> platform, they can still build their own compiler or cross-compile.

Another way to look at it is that it's what all Centos users used
until Centos8 was shipped in September 2019 (i.e. less than five years
ago).

Now I know that developers *LOVE* to use the latest whizbang language
features, but there's a reason that many projects choose to have
relatively old minimum language versions.

Now, again, if the developer community all agree that it makes sense
to stop supporting an operating system that was shipping as recently
as five years ago, then so be it.  But this sort of deprecation
shouldn't simply be the result of a single developer deciding he wants
to use anonymous unions (or some other C17 feature) and thus we drop
support for a bunch of operating system versions.

Devin

-- 
Devin Heitmueller, Senior Software Engineer
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