[Lazarus] Inno Setup no longer supports Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me

[Bart]

On 8/2/12, Reinier Olislagers <reinierolislagers at gmail.com> wrote:

> Is it so strange to get rid of this platform that hasn't been supported
> for ages?

No, it is not.
But we should formally announce that we are going to do so.
Just a matter of being polite.

> I have the feeling this platform is kept alive and supported just
> because of 1 single person waging a succesful PR campaign ...

[The following is not intended to hurt anyones feelings.
Please note that I am not a native English speaking person and nuances
tend to easily get lost in translation, especially when wriiten on
fora or mailinglists]

I do not campaign.
If something breaks Win9x I try to fix.
If it cannot be done (fixing it for win9x), so be it.

> ... and nobody
> dares to disagree.

People (including in lazarus/fpc developers) tend to disagree with me
many times, both in mailinglists, forum and bugtracker.
Most of the times they have better arguments than I, or they are just
plain right and I'm wrong.
This may be the case with current subject also.

As you have pointed out to all, I'm merely an amateur.
I know many contributers to Lazarus/Fpc are not.
I don't mind that.
If my contributions are accepted that's OK, if not, then probably I'm
out of my depth, and I can accept that.
It won't stop me from trying to contribute (just like you I suspect).

> Is there anybody else that needs current Lazarus support for the Win9x
> Windows architecture?

I do not really think so.
As I have stated over and over again: maintaining Win9x compatibility
is a hobby of mine.
No real development (of fpc/lazarus) should suffer from that.
And I think it hasn't.

> Of course, I'm just a (not so) humble contributor and can't shape
> policy, so I'm just waging a PR campaign of my own.

I'm just a humble contribitor too.
And I must admit, some vanity comes into play also...
I enjoy it when code of me ends up in Fpc or Lazarus.

> Thanks for listening - at least I got it off my chest,

And so did I.
Can I charge you for listening ;-) At least I can do that as a professional ;-))

To get back on topic: should we elevate this discussion (stop support
for the win9x platform) to the devel mailinglist and see what comes
from that?

Bart