On 8 November 2016 at 04:27, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> > Date: Mon, 7 Nov 2016 15:22:28 -0500
> > From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
> > Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> >
> > I think deliberately breaking it seems like it would be antisocial,
> > but going through substantial trouble (that is, say, holding back
> > some sort of improved functionality) to make sure it keeps working
> > also seems unreasonable.
>
> We never do the latter.  If some functionality cannot work on old
> Windows systems, there's a runtime test which disables the feature on
> those systems, with some suitable return value or error message.
>
> This has been the Emacs practice for years.
>

FWIW, my impression after reading this thread wasn't merely about the text
in the README, but rather as to whether time should be spent even
considering Windows 9x when working on Emacs.

I took the liberty to search the archives, and found several instances this
year alone where time was spent discussing whether or not to use one
function or another because they weren't supposed on these older versions
of Windows.

At the risk of putting opinions into other people's mouths, I do think that
those are the kinds of discussions no one really wants.

Regards,
Elias