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Today, we build 15 platforms. Many of these have low download numbers. Each platform we support takes time to build, and consumes space on eclipse.org. It also takes time for the SWT and launcher teams to maintain these fragments. I'd like to propose removing the following platforms in 3.7. Solaris gtk sparc Linux gtk ppc 32 bit macosx carbon linux motif x86 The ultimate decision of what platforms stay or go rests with the PMC but I have opened this bug for discussion.
Can you provide the 3.5.2 download stats for those platforms?
By the way, we have already started this discussion in the PMC but it will likely take awhile to resolve.
Regarding download stats, this bug has some numbers for 3.5.2 from a few weeks ago https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=316620#c1
Here are the relevant numbers for 3.5.2: 6,669: mac carbon 421: solaris x86 354: solaris sparc 30: linux motif 43: linux PPC (this is PPC-32, but in 3.6 we have both PPC-32 and PPC-64) Carbon is still surprisingly popular - I wonder if that is just out of habit or if there are still good reasons for it. For Solaris, it seems a nearly even split between SPARC and x86. I don't know which is the better long term choice. We know from past discussion that Linux Motif only exists to make it easier for the SWT team to do Motif development/testing so we never expect a lot of downloads there. I think Linux PPC-32 can be removed in favour of only PPC-64.
I'm not sure what your breakdown of Mac users, but for us, about 13% of them are still on OS X 10.4, which only supports Carbon SWT.
(In reply to comment #5) > I'm not sure what your breakdown of Mac users, but for us, about 13% of them > are still on OS X 10.4, which only supports Carbon SWT. Hm... That's a useful stat. My perception has been that generally a significant percentage of the Mac community moves forward with each new OS release (modulo those running on PPCs, who are stuck at 10.5. and that's even more prevalent among developers). I was looking at some stats collected by a popular Mac vendor on what OS version people are running when they update their applications. 10.4 use has been falling since Sept 2009, and as of this July it's down to about 20% -- and that's for user apps. Our problem is that Mac has the lowest consumption of any of the non-workstation platforms (Mac, Linux, Win), and Carbon is significantly lower than Cocoa. Add to that the fact that Apple clearly thinks Carbon is at EOL, and unfortunately the writing is on the wall.
Kim, I suggest you just proceed with removing Linux PPC-32 at this time. There might be other reference platform changes later this year that will allow us to remove others. For Carbon, since it was a reference platform in Helios and still gets plenty of downloads, I think we should phase it out more slowly. I suggest we remove it as a reference platform immediately in 3.7, and perhaps add a click-through that says Cocoa is the better choice.
Created attachment 179065 [details] patch to remove linux ppc builds
Test build was successful. Only linux gtk ppc64 fragments will be included in the builds >= N20100917-2000. SWT team, I've removed your linux.gtk.ppc fragment from your map. Also, I have removed the org.eclipse.core.filesystem.linux.ppc fragment from the maps. These two fragments have been removed from the rcp feature. The linux.gtk.ppc launcher fragments still exist because Andrew keeps all the fragments in the executable feature.
I also updated the clickthroughs yesterday so carbon users would be encouraged to switch to cocoa since it won't be available in builds > 3.7
Can't this be closed now?
I'm always happy to close bugs. Still the issue of carbon but I guess that will stay for this release?
(In reply to comment #12) > Still the issue of carbon but I guess that will stay for this release? Yes it still gets pretty good download numbers. For reference here are the numbers for 3.7 M3: eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-win32.zip 3448 eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-win32-x86_64.zip 1103 eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-linux-gtk.tar.gz 408 eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-macosx-cocoa-x86_64.tar.gz 339 eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz 323 eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-macosx-cocoa.tar.gz 204 eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-macosx-carbon.tar.gz 118 eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-solaris-gtk-x86.zip 11 eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-solaris-gtk.zip 6 eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-linux-gtk-ppc64.tar.gz 3 eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-aix-gtk-ppc64.zip 2 eclipse-SDK-3.7M3-hpux-motif-ia64_32.zip 1
(In reply to comment #13) > (In reply to comment #12) > > Still the issue of carbon but I guess that will stay for this release? > > Yes it still gets pretty good download numbers. For reference here are the > numbers for 3.7 M3: > Can we update the click-through warning for Carbon downloads so it's clearer that we aren't fixing any bugs in Carbon for 3.7? The message now implies that nothing is changing until after 3.7, when in reality we aren't doing anything on Carbon now.
(In reply to comment #14) > Can we update the click-through warning for Carbon downloads so it's clearer > that we aren't fixing any bugs in Carbon for 3.7? The message now implies that > nothing is changing until after 3.7, when in reality we aren't doing anything > on Carbon now. Good point. The current click-through warning for Carbon says: "Note: The Eclipse team will no longer support carbon after the 3.7 release. We suggest you switch to the cocoa port." The key thing to change is the "after 3.7" part. Carbon is not a reference platform for 3.7, so perhaps this is better: "Note: Carbon is no longer a reference platform for the Eclipse 3.7 release, and will not be produced for releases after 3.7. We suggest you switch to the Cocoa port."
Thanks John and Scott. I've updated the clickthroughs in HEAD.
(In reply to comment #16) > Thanks John and Scott. I've updated the clickthroughs in HEAD. The regular users, who frequently download I/N builds, might easily miss the clickthrough. I downloaded a Carbon N build, and the first thing I did was to click the "Download" button without reading - thinking its the usual "BOMArchiveHelper" message that appears for all Mac OS builds. Since Carbon is not a reference platform in 3.7, can we make the label in the download page something like "[Deprecated] Mac OSX (Mac/Carbon) (Supported Versions)" The "Deprecated" could be a link to this bug.
(In reply to comment #17) > > "[Deprecated] Mac OSX (Mac/Carbon) (Supported Versions)" That sounds reasonable. We have done similar things for other non-reference downloads. Come to think of it, the "Supported Versions" link suggests that it is supported, which it isn't. We could just make it: Mac OSX (Mac/Carbon) (Unsupported) Where "Unsupported" still links to the official reference platform list in the plan, so they can see what is actually supported. I don't suggest linking to this bug - they would need to read through lots of unrelated discussion to find the information they are looking for.
Created attachment 184789 [details] patch to mark carbon as unsupported
Created attachment 184790 [details] mylyn/context/zip
Looks better now. Thx
