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110 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
110 lines
4.4 KiB
Markdown
OS/library compatibility policy
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===============================
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This document describes how we decide which minimum versions of operating systems, C++ standards,
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libraries, build tools (CMake) or compilers Luanti requires.
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Most important is that we do not increase our minimum requirements without a reason or use case.
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A reason can be as simple as "cleaning up legacy support code", but it needs to exist.
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As most development happens on Linux the first measure is to check the version of the component in question on:
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* the oldest still-supported **Ubuntu** (End of Standard Support)
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* the oldest still-supported **Debian** (*not* LTS)
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* optional: the second newest **RHEL (derivative)**
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Generally this leads to versions about 5 years old and works as a reasonable result for BSDs and other platforms too.
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Needless to say that any new requirements need to work on our other platforms too, as listed below.
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### Windows
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We currently support Windows 8 or later.
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Despite requiring explicit support code in numerous places there doesn't seem to be a strong case
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for dropping older Windows versions. We will likely only do it once SDL2 does so.
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Note that we're constrained by the versions [vcpkg](https://vcpkg.io/en/packages) offers, for the MSVC build.
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### macOS
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We currently support macOS 10.14 (Mojave) or later.
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Since we do not have any macOS developer we can only do some shallow testing in CI.
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So this is subject to change basically whenever Github throws
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[a new version](https://github.com/actions/runner-images?tab=readme-ov-file#available-images) at us, or for other reasons.
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### Android
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We currently support Android 5.0 (API 21) or later.
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There's usually no reason to raise this unless the NDK drops older versions.
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*Note*: You can check the Google Play Console to see what our user base is running.
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## Other parts
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**Compilers**: gcc, clang and MSVC (exceptions exist)
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**OpenGL** is an entirely different beast, there is no formal consensus on changing the requirements
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and neither do we have an exact set of requirements.
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We still support OpenGL 1.4 without shaders (fixed-pipeline), which could be considered very unreasonable in 2024.
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OpenGL ES 2.0 is supported for the sake of mobile platforms.
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It has been [proposed](https://irc.minetest.net/minetest-dev/2022-08-18) moving to OpenGL 2.x or 3.0 with shaders required.
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General **system requirements** are not bounded either.
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Being able to play Luanti on a recent low-end phone is a reasonable target.
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## On totality
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These rules are not absolute and there can be exceptions.
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But consider how much trouble it would be to chase down a new version of a component on an old distro:
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* C++ standard library: probably impossible without breaking your system(?)
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* compiler: very annoying
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* CMake: somewhat annoying
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* some ordinary library: reasonably easy
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The rules can be seen more relaxed for optional dependencies, but remember to be reasonable.
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Sound is optional at build-time but nobody would call an engine build without sound complete.
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In general also consider:
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* Is the proposition important enough to warrant a new dependency?
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* Can we make it easier for users to build the library together with Luanti?
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* Maybe even vendor the library?
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* Or could the engine include a transparent fallback implementation?
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The SpatialIndex support is a good example for the latter. It is only used to speed up some (relatively unimportant)
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API feature, but there's no loss of functionality if you don't have it.
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## A concrete example
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(as of April 2024)
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```
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Situation: someone wants C++20 to use std::span
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MSVC supports it after some version, should be fine as long as it builds in CI
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gcc with libstdc++ 10 or later
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clang with libc++ 7 or later (note: no mainstream Linux distros use this)
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Debian 11 has libstdc++ 10
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Ubuntu 20.04 LTS has libstdc++ 9
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(optional) Rocky Linux 8 has libstdc++ 8
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Windows, Android and macOS are probably okay
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Verdict: not possible. maybe next year.
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Possible alternative: use a library that provides a polyfill for std::span
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```
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## Links
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* Ubuntu support table: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases
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* Debian support table: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS
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* Release table of a RHEL derivative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlmaLinux#Releases
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* Android API levels: https://apilevels.com/
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* C++ standard support information: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/compiler_support
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* Distribution-independent package search: https://repology.org/ or https://pkgs.org/
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