{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "bskyPostRef": {
    "cid": "bafyreidl7hgqw3sznzlllwp4wdi4cgi3fj7hpvtr6z52msswxrrign73gm",
    "uri": "at://did:plc:hqad6xwuzg7oqfmwylfkvqfm/app.bsky.feed.post/3mmuymxpq2cu2"
  },
  "path": "/viewtopic.php?t=33466&p=274787#p274787",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-28T02:21:46.000Z",
  "site": "http://forum.palemoon.org",
  "tags": [
    "never changing a running system"
  ],
  "textContent": "> Empirically, the people most adamant about retaining every last bit from 2006–12 intact, the ones who are really still using XP today, seem to be tending their own garden without bothering you. (Correct me if I am wrong.) The conservative pressure here would seem to be from people afraid to be cast off from Pale Moon if it no longer meets there needs after enough time has passed. Their interests would be better met by arranging _now_ an alternative plan, which might well involve a Roy Tam-like UXP fork for Windows 7, 32-bit processors or whatever else, before some Microsoft compiler update or whatnot brings the matter to sudden boil. You would have no part in their plans, although this board would, if they can be civil about it, be the ready place for them to discuss their plans.\n\nWe would really prefer to avoid another such fork, if I am being honest. That is a part of why we haven't dropped 32-bit support, and also why dropping Windows 7 isn't on the table yet. So far I don't even think we're taking full advantage of what VS2022 can do, as far as using C++ standards newer than C++17.\n\nIt all really depends on what Windows 12 looks like, or if Microsoft is even still shipping Windows by the point that would be needed. If Windows 12 is a radical departure, it may become difficult to support anything older and we'd have to cut a lot of older versions painfully. If it's more like Windows 10 and 11 with a new coat of paint and more AI integration, then we probably won't go out of our way to drop older Windows.\n\nAs much as it sucks to say it, I feel like we \"learned our lesson\" (even though I think we did nothing wrong) from XP about dropping support for an OS before Mozilla does. While we're not going back on that decision, we are also not eager to repeat it and deal with the fallout. Especially since we know there is no version of Windows people have \"liked\" since 7, whereas back when we dropped XP there was a clear upgrade path most people considered reasonable and sane. There was a time when smaller projects could choose to be leaner than the big ones and drop support for older stuff earlier than their upstream, and people got it because the smaller project has fewer resources... we don't live in that time anymore, and the burden seems to be on smaller projects to support old stuff long past its \"sell-by\" date now, with us being seen as selling out and \"acting like a big corporation\" if we do drop it.\n\nLet me put it this way... I hope that by the time we drop Windows 7 support, Windows 7 is basically dead enough that we can \"get away with it\" without having to tolerate someone creating a popular hostile fork. I'm hoping to hold until 2030, so that hopefully Windows 12 will be out, we can say \"Windows 7 hasn't been supported in 10 years, come on,\" and people will be forced to chew on that before getting too mad. Unlike when we dropped XP and tons of people were finding ways to get extended support, Mozilla was being more generous, etc.\n\n\n> I think disclosing more about my own attitudes might help. My own principal interest, since I have abandoned anything to do with the great IT combines, is to continue to use this physical computer (mid-2012) as long as it still works. (I have already discussed my current plans for should this computer fail, but the successor would inherit this goal.) It arises, among other places, from a deep-seated belief that one ought to cherish what one already has instead of demanding more and offence at planned obsolescence as business practise. Minding my psychical limits, I also believe in never changing a running system. Conversations here have helped me gather such information that I need to plan, and the facts are such that I doubt I should end up stranded as Pale Moon’s developers pursue their desired direction. Conceivably, if _eg_ Pale Moon adopted a minimum instruction set beyond what this computer can support, and I were thus separated for a time, I could come back after this computer broke, bringing me within the new boundaries.\n\nWe have a much more colloquial version of that saying where I live, and so I am painfully familiar with the concept. People here say, \"If it ain't broke, don't fix it.\" Your version sounds like an attempt to say the same thing without sounding like someone who lives in the countryside, LOL.\n\nWhile I understand to a point, having lived through the 1990s and 2000s when people were expected to buy a new machine every 2-5 years, which was _insane_... I also think that if you get past the point of expecting about 10 years of support for older stuff, it goes from being \"opposition to planned obsolescence\" to being something like \"burying your head in the sand and being stubborn while making developer's lives harder\" Like, I definitely get not wanting to throw away serviceable older hardware, within reason... but I am somewhat less understanding of people insisting on making developer's lives harder when their older hardware could run a supported OS, or using 20-year old hardware as a daily driver outside of living in a third-world country.\n\nThe instruction set is never likely to go beyond AVX2, mostly because AVX512 support is spotty on consumer hardware anyway and thus the proposed standard for x86-64-v4 is essentially a bust since modern CPUs targeted to consumers don't support it fully.\n\nIt's like, yes, I get what was going on in the 1990s and 2000s probably wasn't sustainable, but I think now people are going to the other extreme of wanting to treat a computer like an appliance that should last a lifetime, and really don't want to replace it until it breaks, with a high chance of it being replaced with another old model because they don't like the newer models. One thing that makes me a little annoyed about this is I feel like if it continues, companies might stop making new computers and then we'll _all_ be forced to do everything on the smartphone or keep old stuff on life support forever.\n\nI don't want to live in that world... and sometimes it feels like the people holding out now and stubbornly using old stuff are almost like the opposite end of the post-PC Apple people saying something that almost affirms them, that sounds to me like, \"Yes, the PC era is over, get over it and stop pretending... if you want a PC, you want pre-iPhone stuff, don't even waste your time with anything newer. In fact, I hope PC companies kill off newer PCs as no longer profitable so everyone is forced to either live the way we've chosen to live or move on to smartphones. We don't want a reasonable middle ground to exist, we want to force the choice and we're not going to move to newer stuff and keep the PC alive and supported in some form. It's dead and bound to an era, and we like it that way, we want the PC as a platform to be like retro gaming for the PS3 or something.\" Basically it's like smartphone fans believe the PC is dead and they're happy, retro-oriented PC users also believe the PC is dead and want to stubbornly stick to old stuff forever while being annoyed with anyone who wants to move on. While I and many others actually still don't accept that it's \"dead,\" and want to keep using the newer PC software and hardware as it comes along, but also feel like the retro holdouts are accidentally proving the post-PC people right in the eyes of companies by making new PCs unprofitable.\n\n* * *",
  "title": "General Discussion • Re: Pale Moon's PR Problem",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-28T02:21:46.000Z"
}