Re: Do we still need MSDOS support?

[Mojca M. <moj...@gm...>]

On 4 April 2018 at 23:43, Tatsuro MATSUOKA wrote:
> MSDOS works 16 bit but DJGPP works on 32bit.
>
> gnuplot no longer works on 16bit MSDOS but works on MSDOS with DJGPP extention.
>
> #ifdef MSDOS
> is for now MSDOS with DJGPP.
>
> I myself do not use MSDOS any longer but l do think that it is the time to kill MSDOS.

I'm not a developer, but I fully agree.

Dropping support for MSDOS doesn't mean that you no longer allow
people to run gnuplot there, it merely means that the "dinosaurs" who
still depend on it will not be able to use gnuplot version 6 (or
5.whatever-the-next-version-is). But: what exactly are the benefits of
the latest not-yet-released version of gnuplot that DOS users would so
desperately need? There's a lot of development going on in making GUI
terminals better, none of which will benefit those users.

Mojca

Just as an anecdote. I recently asked if there were any users who
would miss mac ppc binaries for some C++11 software. One user replied
that he would miss them. Then I asked which version he had installed
at that point and if he can try to compile himself just to see if he
would be successful. It turned out he had an old version installed
anyway and the computer was at some remote location he rarely visits,
so he could not even try.