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Future of Opera

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darkrats

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Jun 13, 2006, 7:41:46 PM6/13/06
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The makers of Firefox recently indicated that version 2 will be the last to
work with Windows 98-ME. Version 3 will work only with XP or newer operating
systems. Does anyone know the official Opera policy (if any) on continuing
support for older systems like Windows 98-ME?


Spartanicus

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Jun 13, 2006, 8:43:21 PM6/13/06
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"darkrats" <dark...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>The makers of Firefox recently indicated that version 2 will be the last to
>work with Windows 98-ME. Version 3 will work only with XP or newer operating
>systems.

IIRC some future version will require an NT based OS, that would include
NT, W2K, XP, I presume it will also run on Vista.

>Does anyone know the official Opera policy (if any) on continuing
>support for older systems like Windows 98-ME?

Afaik nothing regarding future support for the W9x platform has been
announced one way or the other.

--
Spartanicus

Haavard Kvam Moen

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Jun 14, 2006, 4:46:36 AM6/14/06
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On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:41:46 -0600, "darkrats" <dark...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

I don't think there are any plans to drop 9x/Me in the near future.
However, these Windows versions are getting really old, and I can
imagine that at some point, the cost of maintaining compatibility will
simply be too high compared to the actual user base and also the
capabilities of the operating system iself.

--
Håvard Kvam Moen, QA SaD

Rijk van Geijtenbeek

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Jun 14, 2006, 5:59:49 AM6/14/06
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On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 10:46:36 +0200, Haavard Kvam Moen wrote:

> On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 17:41:46 -0600, "darkrats" wrote:
>
>> The makers of Firefox recently indicated that version 2 will be the
>> last to work with Windows 98-ME. Version 3 will work only with XP or
>> newer operating systems. Does anyone know the official Opera policy (if
>> any) on continuing support for older systems like Windows 98-ME?
>
> I don't think there are any plans to drop 9x/Me in the near future.
> However, these Windows versions are getting really old, and I can
> imagine that at some point, the cost of maintaining compatibility will
> simply be too high compared to the actual user base and also the
> capabilities of the operating system iself.

The developers try real hard to be conservative with system requirements,
because everything we produce should work on a great variety of devices.
There is an unofficial goal of supporting 10 year old PC hardware, which
implies we'll try to support Win9x systems in the near future at least.
But there are indeed no official promises, and reality might catch us some
day.

--

Rijk van Geijtenbeek
Opera Software ASA, Documentation & QA
Tweak: http://my.opera.com/Rijk/blog/

Matthew Winn

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Jun 14, 2006, 6:51:40 AM6/14/06
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On Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:59:49 +0200, Rijk van Geijtenbeek <ri...@opera-dot-com.invalid> wrote:
> The developers try real hard to be conservative with system requirements,
> because everything we produce should work on a great variety of devices.
> There is an unofficial goal of supporting 10 year old PC hardware, which
> implies we'll try to support Win9x systems in the near future at least.

Supporting 10 year old _hardware_ is easy. Just put Linux on it
and everything else follows.

It's supporting 10 year old _software_ that's difficult.

> But there are indeed no official promises, and reality might catch us some
> day.

I'm surprised Win9x is still supported now. I'd expect it to be
supported by open source software as long as there's someone around
who needs it and is willing to write to code to keep it working, but
now Opera's free on desktop machines I can't see any incentive for
Opera to keep supporting Win9x once the development cost starts to
rise.

I suppose there's always the option of reintroducing a licence fee
for the Win9x version of Opera. It could be supported forever if
people are willing to pay enough to make it profitable.

--
Matthew Winn
[If replying by email remove the "r" from "urk"]

darkrats

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Jun 15, 2006, 5:11:24 AM6/15/06
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Thanks for the "official" word on this. Someone down the thread suggested
that support for 9X could continue indefinitely, if users were willing to
pay for it. That might be an idea worth thinking about. BTW, the latest
weekly (daily) build (8490) is working fine on my machine.

"Rijk van Geijtenbeek" <ri...@opera-dot-com.invalid> wrote in message
news:op.ta4rd...@news.opera.com...

roman modic

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Jun 15, 2006, 9:17:55 AM6/15/06
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Hello!

"Rijk van Geijtenbeek" <ri...@opera-dot-com.invalid> wrote in message news:op.ta4rd...@news.opera.com...
>

> The developers try real hard to be conservative with system requirements, because everything we produce should work on a great
> variety of devices. There is an unofficial goal of supporting 10 year old PC hardware, which implies we'll try to support Win9x
> systems in the near future at least. But there are indeed no official promises, and reality might catch us some day.

Thanks for these word. BTW, here is an interesting thread regardin
browsers in Windows 95/98/SE/ME:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/2006/06/drop_windows_9xme_support.html

Cheers, Roman


Rijk van Geijtenbeek

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Jun 15, 2006, 10:10:56 AM6/15/06
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Nice discussion. Gerv will of course not get his wish (dropping Win9x
support in FF2)> But everyone in that thread seems to be sure that FF3
does not need to support the old systems, which is also the official plan
now. That means Opera (9) will be and stay the only Acid2-test-passing
browser for those systems. I wonder how many people will feel forced to
migrate to XP or later now that MicroSoft stops the support for Win9x
completely - I think not that many, because they hardly ever need that
support anyway.

[followups set to opera.off-topic]

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