Re: [Gimp-print-devel] MacOS 10.6

[Matt B. <wal...@ma...>]

> On Feb 3, 2021, at 9:29 PM, Robert Krawitz <rl...@al...> wrote:
> 
> On 2/3/21 9:35 AM, Matt Broughton wrote:
>>> On Feb 2, 2021, at 6:29 PM, Solomon Peachy <pi...@sh...> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Feb 02, 2021 at 06:15:51PM -0500, Robert Krawitz wrote:
>>>> Other than a couple of Mac mini systems that lived on through August 
>>>> 2007, these were all short-lived laptops that were discontinued at 
>>>> various times in 2006, so close to 15 years ago.
>>> 
>>> 10.6 was also the final release to support running PPC binaries (via 
>>> Rosetta) so there might be folks with newer hardware that are legitimately
>>> stuck on it. 
>> 
>> The ones "stuck" on 10.6 may be the enterprise people.  How long did it take for businesses to update from Windows 98.  I'm not so sure about the home user.  You can't do much if anything on the internet.>
>>> I like the sound of Matt's proposal of two installer packages, one for 
>>> 10.6->10.12, and another for 10.13+, but that obviously carries ongoing 
>>> support burdens for us, especially for platforms that Apple ceased 
>>> supporting over a decade ago.
>> 
>> I suggested that because I think it takes a lot more time and resources to build a one off for 10.6.  Also, if I remember correctly, when Michael Sweet offered to help us, he indicated that he may not be able to support anything lower than 10.13.  With more systems that could use an unsigned installer, it  *might* be justified to offer a package that wasn't signed.
> 
> You and Steve have a much better understanding of the Apple market than I do, certainly.  When
> you've determined what you're going to do, I'll cut a new release build.


Most of my previous comments were to show how we could meet your general feeling that we should support the lowest system we can.  That would mean to support 10.6, we either have to do a singular build for 10.6 each release or make it more universal and support 10.6 thru 10.12 with one installer and later versions with a second installer.  Either option means two installers.

A more pragmatic view would be to consider what printers users of 10.6 are using.  If there is a reason they haven't upgraded to a more recent version of macos, I don't think many of them have upgraded their printers.  I think we have a pretty good record of supporting older printers.  We still support an HP DeskJet 870c and an Epson Stylus Color 800.  I used both of them back in System 7.1. They can still use a parallel to USB connector. That's a pretty good track record.

What about any new printers they may try to use.  I'm guessing here!!.  I think most of the new HP printers use some flavor of PCL GUI which we don't support.  I think most of the Epson printers are 300 dpi rather than 360 dpi.  We don't support them either.  The Ricoh family has gone mostly to PDF to PDF.  I'm not sure about the Canon printers.

What's the old business adage.  You spend 90 percent of your time and effort to support 99 percent of your clients.  It takes the remaining 10 percent of your time and effort to support the other 1 percent.  It essentially boils down to make two installers for each release to include 10.6 or one installer to support macos 7 Lion through macos 11 Big Sur.  I'm not doing the work on the installers, I will let you and Steve decide which way to go.

As always, I should mention that my writing style is often a bit strong and lengthy.  It is not meant to be such.

Matt