macOS support (was: bug#30800: 26.0.91; unknown crash on macos)

macOS support (was: bug#30800: 26.0.91; unknown crash on macos)

[Alan Third]

On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 01:57:21PM -0700, Aaron Jensen wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 12:52 PM, Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> wrote:
> > I would like to revert it if only simplify the code, but I don’t feel
> > that strongly. It may have been fixed in later releases of 10.10. It
> > would be nice if someone using 10.10 could check, but I don’t know who
> > could do that.
> 
> How far back is Emacs meant to support, out of curiosity?

Emacs 26 supports 10.6 and up. I’m not aware of any official line on
how far back we should support, but I know there’s at least one Emacs
dev who uses 10.6, and would argue against desupporting it, and
another who uses 10.9.

-- 
Alan Third

Re: macOS support (was: bug#30800: 26.0.91; unknown crash on macos)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2018 21:47:05 +0000
> From: Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 01:57:21PM -0700, Aaron Jensen wrote:
> > On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 12:52 PM, Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> wrote:
> > > I would like to revert it if only simplify the code, but I don’t feel
> > > that strongly. It may have been fixed in later releases of 10.10. It
> > > would be nice if someone using 10.10 could check, but I don’t know who
> > > could do that.
> > 
> > How far back is Emacs meant to support, out of curiosity?
> 
> Emacs 26 supports 10.6 and up. I’m not aware of any official line on
> how far back we should support, but I know there’s at least one Emacs
> dev who uses 10.6, and would argue against desupporting it, and
> another who uses 10.9.

Are there any numbers about how widespread each version is on end-user
machines?

Re: macOS support (was: bug#30800: 26.0.91; unknown crash on macos)

[Aaron Jensen]

On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 11:35 PM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> Are there any numbers about how widespread each version is on end-user
> machines?

According to http://gs.statcounter.com/macos-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide

| macOS High Sierra     | 10.13 | 37.76% |
| macOS Sierra          | 10.12 | 23.49% |
| OS X El Capitan       | 10.11 |  18.6% |
| OS X Yosemite         | 10.10 | 11.51% |
| OS X Mavericks        |  10.9 |  3.96% |
| mac OS X Snow Leopard |  10.6 |  1.78% |

I couldn't find anything else to corroborate that though.

Re: macOS support (was: bug#30800: 26.0.91; unknown crash on macos)

[Alan Third]

On Sat, Mar 24, 2018 at 12:18:47AM -0700, Aaron Jensen wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 11:35 PM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> > Are there any numbers about how widespread each version is on end-user
> > machines?
> 
> According to http://gs.statcounter.com/macos-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide
> 
> | macOS High Sierra     | 10.13 | 37.76% |
> | macOS Sierra          | 10.12 | 23.49% |
> | OS X El Capitan       | 10.11 |  18.6% |
> | OS X Yosemite         | 10.10 | 11.51% |
> | OS X Mavericks        |  10.9 |  3.96% |
> | mac OS X Snow Leopard |  10.6 |  1.78% |
> 
> I couldn't find anything else to corroborate that though.

These chat app devs publish their installation statistics:

https://www.adium.im/sparkle/

| 10.13.3 | 35.42% |
| 10.11.6 | 17.15% |
| 10.12.6 | 15.96% |
| 10.10.5 |  5.37% |
|  10.6.8 |  5.37% |
|  10.9.5 |  3.54% |
| 10.4.11 |  3.02% |
| 10.11.4 |  2.31% |
| 10.13.2 |  1.75% |
|   Other | 10.10% |

I wonder what stops those 10.11.4 hold‐outs upgrading to 10.11.6?
-- 
Alan Third

Re: macOS support (was: bug#30800: 26.0.91; unknown crash on macos)

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Aaron Jensen <aaronjensen@gmail.com>
> Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 00:18:47 -0700
> Cc: Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 11:35 PM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> > Are there any numbers about how widespread each version is on end-user
> > machines?
> 
> According to http://gs.statcounter.com/macos-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide
> 
> | macOS High Sierra     | 10.13 | 37.76% |
> | macOS Sierra          | 10.12 | 23.49% |
> | OS X El Capitan       | 10.11 |  18.6% |
> | OS X Yosemite         | 10.10 | 11.51% |
> | OS X Mavericks        |  10.9 |  3.96% |
> | mac OS X Snow Leopard |  10.6 |  1.78% |

6% is quite high, I think.

Re: macOS support (was: bug#30800: 26.0.91; unknown crash on macos)

[David Reitter]

On Mar 24, 2018, at 2:35 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> Are there any numbers about how widespread each version is on end-user
> machines?

Better, I can show you the number of unique (and somewhat frequent) Aquamacs Emacs users throughout 2017, below.
(Some of them will have upgraded throughout the year, so they would be counted multiple times.)

In these data, we’re seeing that out of all users, only 2.15% are still on Mac OS X 10.6.  (Full distribution shown below.)

If we do the same for November and December 2017 only.  Now we’re down to 1.21% and 1.24% 10.6 users, respectively.

Looking at queries (which run every third day, as long as Emacs is in use):  Out of the Dec 2017 queries (838) from machine that still run 10.6, only 6% (54) bothered to upgrade to the latest version, which was released in mid-2016.  Clearly, users of very old operating systems also don’t care to upgrade their Emacs.

Now, there are some old Macs that can only run 10.6.  However, clearly, few users will update applications but not never the OS.

I hope these data can support your decision where to direct scarce volunteer resources.



[aquamacs /home/protected]$ ./macos-users v2017
unique users with more than 10 startups:
OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard:
    1074
OS X 10.7 Lion:
     776
OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion:
     726
OS X 10.9 Mavericks:
    2631
OS X 10.10 Yosemite:
    5418
OS X 10.11 El Capitan:
   11526
macOS 10.12 Sierra:
   20594
macOS 10.13 High Sierra:
    7116
—
Total 49861

Re: macOS support (was: bug#30800: 26.0.91; unknown crash on macos)

[Tim Cross]

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I don't think we are doing users any favours by providing long backwards
compatibility for OS versions, especially if that comes at the cost of code
clarity, maintainability and feature stability. There have been some
significant security patches applied to later versions of OSX. I'm not
suiggesting we immediately drop support for earlier versions, but 10.6 was
released in 2009 - a 9 to 10 year backwards compatibility is probably
excessive - 5 years would probably be a better target.



On 26 March 2018 at 07:08, David Reitter <david.reitter@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mar 24, 2018, at 2:35 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> > Are there any numbers about how widespread each version is on end-user
> > machines?
>
> Better, I can show you the number of unique (and somewhat frequent)
> Aquamacs Emacs users throughout 2017, below.
> (Some of them will have upgraded throughout the year, so they would be
> counted multiple times.)
>
> In these data, we’re seeing that out of all users, only 2.15% are still on
> Mac OS X 10.6.  (Full distribution shown below.)
>
> If we do the same for November and December 2017 only.  Now we’re down to
> 1.21% and 1.24% 10.6 users, respectively.
>
> Looking at queries (which run every third day, as long as Emacs is in
> use):  Out of the Dec 2017 queries (838) from machine that still run 10.6,
> only 6% (54) bothered to upgrade to the latest version, which was released
> in mid-2016.  Clearly, users of very old operating systems also don’t care
> to upgrade their Emacs.
>
> Now, there are some old Macs that can only run 10.6.  However, clearly,
> few users will update applications but not never the OS.
>
> I hope these data can support your decision where to direct scarce
> volunteer resources.
>
>
>
> [aquamacs /home/protected]$ ./macos-users v2017
> unique users with more than 10 startups:
> OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard:
>     1074
> OS X 10.7 Lion:
>      776
> OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion:
>      726
> OS X 10.9 Mavericks:
>     2631
> OS X 10.10 Yosemite:
>     5418
> OS X 10.11 El Capitan:
>    11526
> macOS 10.12 Sierra:
>    20594
> macOS 10.13 High Sierra:
>     7116
> —
> Total 49861
>



-- 
regards,

Tim

--
Tim Cross

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Re: macOS support

[Stefan Monnier]

> suiggesting we immediately drop support for earlier versions, but 10.6 was
> released in 2009 - a 9 to 10 year backwards compatibility is probably
> excessive - 5 years would probably be a better target.

As a user of one of those machines which are only supported upto OSX
10.6 (a 2006 macmini), I'm split on this one:
- on the one hand, I strongly disagree with Apple and the rest of the
  industry who wants to force users to keep buying new machines, even
  tho the old ones would still do the job just fine.  So I'd rather that
  Emacs doesn't encourage its users to buy a new machine just because we
  don't support their version of OSX any more.
- on the other, I of course don't use OSX but Debian on that machine,
  and find it actually supports the hardware better than OSX ever has
  (e.g. I can use both the VGA and the DVI output at the same time).
  So I strongly encourage those users who think they're stuck with OSX
  10.6 to upgrade to a Free operating system.


-- Stefan

Re: macOS support

[Paul Eggert]

Stefan Monnier wrote:
>    So I strongly encourage those users who think they're stuck with OSX
>    10.6 to upgrade to a Free operating system.

This makes sense to me too.

Generally speaking Emacs and other GNU projects shouldn't bother supporting 
platforms that are no longer supported by their original issuers. For example, 
starting in 2014 we no longer needed to bother to support IRIX, because SGI no 
longer supported IRIX.

As I understand it, Apple itself supports only the last three or four macOS 
versions. This is not a formal rule that Apple publishes -- Apple being Apple 
keeps such info a secret -- but it's a reasonably accurate description of their 
behavior. With this in mind, I suggest that we now stop worrying about OS X 10.9 
"Mavericks" and earlier, as Apple itself no longer supports these older 
releases. This doesn't mean we need to rip out older code immediately, it just 
means we shouldn't worry about these older releases. Really, we have better 
things to do with our limited resources.

Re: macOS support

[Stefan Monnier]

> Generally speaking Emacs and other GNU projects shouldn't bother supporting
> platforms that are no longer supported by their original issuers.

While I agree with this, by and large, there can be good reasons not to
follow this rule when we disagree with the issuers.

> For example, starting in 2014 we no longer needed to bother to support
> IRIX, because SGI no longer supported IRIX.

This a good example: I think SGI made a pretty good effort of supporting
IRIX for as long as it could make sense, so I'm fine with dropping IRIX
support at the same time as SGI.

> As I understand it, Apple itself supports only the last three or four macOS
> versions.

Note that the issue is not really software support but hardware support:
Apple is pretty aggressive about dropping support for old hardware in
its newer OSes.  They could make OSX 10.11 work on my old macmini but
decided it would be counterproductive for their business.


        Stefan

Re: macOS support

[Tim Cross]

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I'm not a big fan of Apple either, but do use it (primarily because
employers are more willing to support/allow Apple than Linux and I just
can't do windows, so lesser of two evils really).

However, I have upgraded my old mac mini to High Sierra with no problems. I
can't remember when I actually purchased it, but from vague memory, it
originally came with mountain lion, so that would be 10.8

I believe 10.12/10.13 are supposed to be supported on all mac mini, imac
and macbooks from 2009 models onwards.  My macmini is slow, but it was
always slow. I do run Emacs on it.

Tim

P.S. I also will be putting Debian on my Mini at the end of this year.


On 26 March 2018 at 13:14, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:

> > Generally speaking Emacs and other GNU projects shouldn't bother
> supporting
> > platforms that are no longer supported by their original issuers.
>
> While I agree with this, by and large, there can be good reasons not to
> follow this rule when we disagree with the issuers.
>
> > For example, starting in 2014 we no longer needed to bother to support
> > IRIX, because SGI no longer supported IRIX.
>
> This a good example: I think SGI made a pretty good effort of supporting
> IRIX for as long as it could make sense, so I'm fine with dropping IRIX
> support at the same time as SGI.
>
> > As I understand it, Apple itself supports only the last three or four
> macOS
> > versions.
>
> Note that the issue is not really software support but hardware support:
> Apple is pretty aggressive about dropping support for old hardware in
> its newer OSes.  They could make OSX 10.11 work on my old macmini but
> decided it would be counterproductive for their business.
>
>
>         Stefan
>
>
>


-- 
regards,

Tim

--
Tim Cross

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Re: macOS support

[Jean-Christophe Helary]

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> On Mar 26, 2018, at 14:41, Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm not a big fan of Apple either, but do use it (primarily because employers are more willing to support/allow Apple than Linux and I just can't do windows, so lesser of two evils really). 
> 
> However, I have upgraded my old mac mini to High Sierra with no problems. I can't remember when I actually purchased it, but from vague memory, it originally came with mountain lion, so that would be 10.8
> 
> I believe 10.12/10.13 are supposed to be supported on all mac mini, imac and macbooks from 2009 models onwards.  My macmini is slow, but it was always slow. I do run Emacs on it.

The good thing about Apple hardware is that it is very robust. I still have 15+ years old PPC machines that work flawlessly. If there is a need to draw a line in the sand somewhere it should either be the OS version that first supported intel/32bits *only* or the one that first supported intel/64bits *only*. I'm not sure which is which though.

(@Tim: if you need some speed, think of changing your hard disk to an SSD disk, my 2011 MBP has rejuvenated a way that I never though possible thank to that.)

Jean-Christophe 

> 
> Tim
> 
> P.S. I also will be putting Debian on my Mini at the end of this year. 
> 
> 
> On 26 March 2018 at 13:14, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca <mailto:monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>> wrote:
> > Generally speaking Emacs and other GNU projects shouldn't bother supporting
> > platforms that are no longer supported by their original issuers.
> 
> While I agree with this, by and large, there can be good reasons not to
> follow this rule when we disagree with the issuers.
> 
> > For example, starting in 2014 we no longer needed to bother to support
> > IRIX, because SGI no longer supported IRIX.
> 
> This a good example: I think SGI made a pretty good effort of supporting
> IRIX for as long as it could make sense, so I'm fine with dropping IRIX
> support at the same time as SGI.
> 
> > As I understand it, Apple itself supports only the last three or four macOS
> > versions.
> 
> Note that the issue is not really software support but hardware support:
> Apple is pretty aggressive about dropping support for old hardware in
> its newer OSes.  They could make OSX 10.11 work on my old macmini but
> decided it would be counterproductive for their business.


Jean-Christophe Helary
-----------------------------------------------
http://mac4translators.blogspot.com @brandelune



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Re: macOS support

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > I'm not a big fan of Apple either, but do use it (primarily because
  > employers are more willing to support/allow Apple than Linux and I just
  > can't do windows, so lesser of two evils really).

If you're talking about a system roughly comparable with MacOS,
I'm sure you mean GNU/Linux, not Linux which is a kernel only.

Many people do call the system "Linux", but when they do, it treats us
unfairly by attributing our work to someone else.  "Us" includes
everyone contributing to the GNU Project, including everyone that
works on GNU Emacs.  Would you please give us equal mention by saying
"GNU/Linux"?

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See https://stallman.org/skype.html.