[Twisted-Python] Twisted Users on Windows XP
Hi everyone, I have raised the question of Windows XP support in Twisted earlier today in #twisted-dev. Since the Microsoft "extended support" cut-off is within six or so months, and there is continuing trouble with the XP-based buildslave, I think it would be a good idea to get a figure of how many Windows XP users there are currently using Twisted, so informed decisions can be made in regards to supporting it. If you use Twisted on Windows XP, please comment on ticket #6798 [1], so we can get an idea of the usage numbers. -hawkowl [1] https://twistedmatrix.com/trac/ticket/6798
On Oct 23, 2013, at 7:07 AM, HawkOwl <hawkowl@atleastfornow.net> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have raised the question of Windows XP support in Twisted earlier today in #twisted-dev. Since the Microsoft "extended support" cut-off is within six or so months, and there is continuing trouble with the XP-based buildslave, I think it would be a good idea to get a figure of how many Windows XP users there are currently using Twisted, so informed decisions can be made in regards to supporting it.
If you use Twisted on Windows XP, please comment on ticket #6798 [1], so we can get an idea of the usage numbers.
-hawkowl
I have 2 concerns with XP support; one is that an existing user will be unable to upgrade to a new version of Twisted, but an equally valid concern is that Twisted would be unsuitable for a *new* application because of a requirement to run on XP. And although Microsoft doesn't support it, there are still millions and millions of computers with it installed. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems> Perhaps more interesting than that ~30% number, though, is the fact that ~7% of the Steam user base is still actively using XP on machines they play games on: <http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey> And I'd definitely like Twisted to stay true to its roots and remain an attractive option for game developers. I'm pretty sure no games on the Steam store currently use Twisted, but I would like that to change ;-). "First, sacrifice 7% of your potential revenue" seems like a bad starting point for the pitch for why Twisted would be great to use in their game. Nevertheless I can definitely understand the appeal of dropping support for XP, too. I really hope that the "extended support" cut-off is going to provoke a massive drop in those numbers, but somehow I suspect that a substantial fraction of the people on those systems are going to keep using them until they physically fail, and do not know or care whether Microsoft "supports" them. Also, aren't the majority of the problems on the Windows buildslave just race conditions that we don't seem to hit with our other builders right now? It would be good to have it be regularly green *before* it's decommissioned. (If you're referring to operational issues keeping it running, then, by all means carry on.) -glyph
If you're still running XP isn't it pretty unlikely you have hardware modern enough to power a Steam game in the first place? -J Sent via iPhone Is your email Premiere?
On Oct 23, 2013, at 10:51, Glyph <glyph@twistedmatrix.com> wrote:
On Oct 23, 2013, at 7:07 AM, HawkOwl <hawkowl@atleastfornow.net> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have raised the question of Windows XP support in Twisted earlier today in #twisted-dev. Since the Microsoft "extended support" cut-off is within six or so months, and there is continuing trouble with the XP-based buildslave, I think it would be a good idea to get a figure of how many Windows XP users there are currently using Twisted, so informed decisions can be made in regards to supporting it.
If you use Twisted on Windows XP, please comment on ticket #6798 [1], so we can get an idea of the usage numbers.
-hawkowl
I have 2 concerns with XP support; one is that an existing user will be unable to upgrade to a new version of Twisted, but an equally valid concern is that Twisted would be unsuitable for a *new* application because of a requirement to run on XP. And although Microsoft doesn't support it, there are still millions and millions of computers with it installed.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems>
Perhaps more interesting than that ~30% number, though, is the fact that ~7% of the Steam user base is still actively using XP on machines they play games on:
<http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey>
And I'd definitely like Twisted to stay true to its roots and remain an attractive option for game developers. I'm pretty sure no games on the Steam store currently use Twisted, but I would like that to change ;-). "First, sacrifice 7% of your potential revenue" seems like a bad starting point for the pitch for why Twisted would be great to use in their game.
Nevertheless I can definitely understand the appeal of dropping support for XP, too. I really hope that the "extended support" cut-off is going to provoke a massive drop in those numbers, but somehow I suspect that a substantial fraction of the people on those systems are going to keep using them until they physically fail, and do not know or care whether Microsoft "supports" them.
Also, aren't the majority of the problems on the Windows buildslave just race conditions that we don't seem to hit with our other builders right now? It would be good to have it be regularly green *before* it's decommissioned. (If you're referring to operational issues keeping it running, then, by all means carry on.)
-glyph
_______________________________________________ Twisted-Python mailing list Twisted-Python@twistedmatrix.com http://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-python
If you're still running XP isn't it pretty unlikely you have hardware modern enough to power a Steam game in the first place?
You'd be surprised. I have an XP machine at work because I never bothered to buy a new license for Win7, but I've upgraded the hardware reasonably recently. I have no idea if home users are in the same situation.
It's also worth noting that there are a fair number of people (at least I know some) who use their old XP licenses for testing Windows software in VMs, especially if they're usually working in Linux or Mac OS X. On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Daniel Sank <sank.daniel@gmail.com> wrote:
If you're still running XP isn't it pretty unlikely you have hardware modern enough to power a Steam game in the first place?
You'd be surprised. I have an XP machine at work because I never bothered to buy a new license for Win7, but I've upgraded the hardware reasonably recently. I have no idea if home users are in the same situation.
_______________________________________________ Twisted-Python mailing list Twisted-Python@twistedmatrix.com http://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-python
-- -- Kevin Horn
On Oct 28, 2013, at 8:45 AM, Kevin Horn <kevin.horn@gmail.com> wrote:
It's also worth noting that there are a fair number of people (at least I know some) who use their old XP licenses for testing Windows software in VMs, especially if they're usually working in Linux or Mac OS X.
Do you, yourself do this? Anywhere possible it would be nice to identify real, actual users rather than hypothetical proto-users :-). -glyph
On 30 Οκτ 2013, at 12:34 π.μ., Glyph <glyph@twistedmatrix.com> wrote:
On Oct 28, 2013, at 8:45 AM, Kevin Horn <kevin.horn@gmail.com> wrote:
It's also worth noting that there are a fair number of people (at least I know some) who use their old XP licenses for testing Windows software in VMs, especially if they're usually working in Linux or Mac OS X.
Do you, yourself do this?
I used to do that, but nowadays use the VMs Microsoft provides for testing webpages under IE [1] and multiple windows environments. Just download your favorite flavor and run. I'm not sure about limitations they might have, but I was able to install other software just fine. [1]: http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools
Anywhere possible it would be nice to identify real, actual users rather than hypothetical proto-users :-).
-glyph
_______________________________________________ Twisted-Python mailing list Twisted-Python@twistedmatrix.com http://twistedmatrix.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/twisted-python
On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 3:13 AM, Orestis Markou <orestis@orestis.gr> wrote:
On 30 Οκτ 2013, at 12:34 π.μ., Glyph <glyph@twistedmatrix.com> wrote:
On Oct 28, 2013, at 8:45 AM, Kevin Horn <kevin.horn@gmail.com> wrote:
It's also worth noting that there are a fair number of people (at least I know some) who use their old XP licenses for testing Windows software in VMs, especially if they're usually working in Linux or Mac OS X.
Do you, yourself do this?
I used to do that, but nowadays use the VMs Microsoft provides for testing webpages under IE [1] and multiple windows environments. Just download your favorite flavor and run. I'm not sure about limitations they might have, but I was able to install other software just fine.
It's worth noting that MS still provides XP images on this site, though I suppose that may (probably will) change when XP extended support ends. With luck, maybe that means I can finally stop caring about IE6 entirely. I'm probably not that lucky though... In any case I think Twisted should keep support for XP until extended support ends, or at least until we know what the user base looks like _after_ extended support ends. I'm not too familiar with the overhead of doing so, however, so it's not that informed of an opinion, I'm afraid. -- Kevin Horn
On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 5:34 PM, Glyph <glyph@twistedmatrix.com> wrote:
On Oct 28, 2013, at 8:45 AM, Kevin Horn <kevin.horn@gmail.com> wrote:
It's also worth noting that there are a fair number of people (at least I know some) who use their old XP licenses for testing Windows software in VMs, especially if they're usually working in Linux or Mac OS X.
Do you, yourself do this?
Anywhere possible it would be nice to identify real, actual users rather than hypothetical proto-users :-).
-glyph
Well, I haven't in a year or two, because I haven't needed to test anything on Windows in a while (mostly writing web stuff these days). But I thought it was worth pointing out. Perhaps of more interest (or perhaps not) is that I myself was running WinXP until about a year ago, and only really upgraded because I had some hardware fail and it's...unpleasant...to install WinXP on modern processors, since the XP installer doesn't seem to know what to do with multi-core processors (or at least the processor I was using). -- Kevin Horn
On Oct 23, 2013, at 10:56 AM, Jason J. W. Williams <jasonjwwilliams@gmail.com> wrote:
If you're still running XP isn't it pretty unlikely you have hardware modern enough to power a Steam game in the first place?
Not according to the statistics that Valve themselves publish about Steam. Did you read the link in the original email?
Is your email Premiere?
I'm not sure what you mean. My email is not the leader of a foreign country or anything, and I don't think that my email is the best email ever written or read. Why do you ask? -glyph
Not according to the statistics that Valve themselves publish about Steam. Did you read the link in the original email?
Yeah, I didn't see a correlation though of what kind of hardware those folks were running. They could be running ancient stuff and are prepared to deal with the consequences of running XP.
Is your email Premiere?
I'm not sure what you mean. My email is not the leader of a foreign country or anything, and I don't think that my email is the best email ever written or read. Why do you ask?
Wasn't a real question. I used my office e-mail client and it added a signature. -J
participants (6)
-
Daniel Sank -
Glyph -
HawkOwl -
Jason J. W. Williams -
Kevin Horn -
Orestis Markou