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Comment by kelnos | Hacker News Reader

Much better article, from the source: https://simon.shimmerproject.org/2019/10/19/xfce-4-15-develo...

Not sure why the linked article is describing all this stuff as some big "secret"; the Xfce development list has been public forever. It's also weird to call Simon's public blog "secret".

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Ok, we've changed to that from https://linuxreviews.org/Xfce4-panel_4.15.0_kicks_off_Xfces_.... Thanks!

> Let’s start with one very important and obvious change: we will drop Gtk2 support with Xfce 4.16. This will have a concrete effect on old Panel plugins or Gtk2 applications that rely on libxfce4ui.

I read a blog by dedoimedo who complains constantly at how willing Linux developers are to break things / not maintain compatibility. It makes me think of how I take for granted how so many of my old pc games will still run on windows 10. Not that the telemetry is acceptable

I like Gtk2 but it has big problems in HiDPI scenarios, and is not Wayland native. It's quite worthwhile by now to standardize on the Gtk3 series, at least provided that reliable theming is added back in - and Gtk3 developers seem to be aware that this is widely considered to be a real issue.

I wouldn't say "Linux developers". To me, it seems that not only are the Linux kernel developers incredibly concerned with backwards compatibility, but so are many other projects. In my view, it's only in the context of DE stuff like Gtk/Gnome that backwards compatibility seems to go out the window.

I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t play games from the 90s. Recently discovered Imperium Galactica 2 and Space Empires 4 - from 99 and 2000 - and they both run great on Win10, 20 years later.

GTK3 came out in 2011, which was also the year of the last major GTK2 release. Its not implausible that GTK4 will be out before Xfce 4.16.

How long should older software like GTK2 be supported by upstream developers? Keep in mind XFCE is more or less a volunteer-run software effort.

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