RFC: Switching to min Qt version 5.14 for KF on December 14th

[Volker Krause]

On Sonntag, 6. Dezember 2020 14:20:47 CET Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> you might have seen I asked* whether anyone knows a real world requirement
> to stick with Qt 5.13 as new current minimum required Qt version for
> current KF releases. So far no-one had to report a reason to support Qt >=
> 5.13 instead of only Qt >= 5.14 now.
> * E.g.
> https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/distributions/2020-December/000894.html
> 
> So hereby I propose to switch for KF 5.78 to Qt 5.14 as minimum version, and
> change the KF dependencies policy text* to this:
> * https://community.kde.org/Frameworks/Policies#Frameworks_Qt_requirements
> 
> "
> With Qt6 this changes a little bit again. We interpolate "as if" more Qt 5
> versions would be released. Then adapt to actual real world usage of a given
> Qt version:
> * Qt 5.13 will be the minimum required version 6 months after Qt 5.15, i.e.
> on 26 Nov 2020
> * Qt 5.14 would be the minimum required version 12 months after Qt 5.15,
> i.e. on 26 May 2021. With no-one known to stick with Qt 5.13, the date is
> moved to earlier mid-December 2020.
> * Qt 5.15 LTS will be the minimum required version 18 months after its
> release, i.e. on 26 Nov 2021
> "

Thanks! I'm generally in favor of an accelerated path to Qt 5.15 as the 
minimum dependency in the light of the upcoming Qt 6 transition. The proposed 
approach only addresses half of the problem though, we'll end up with the same 
discussion in a few month again I fear. Would it therefore make sense to cover 
this as well now, so people can plan ahead?

For example:

> With Qt6 this changes a little bit again. We interpolate "as if" more Qt 5
> versions would be released on a slightly accelerated schedule to match the 
> expected convergence towards the final Qt5 release:
> * Qt 5.13 will be the minimum required version 6 months after Qt 5.15, i.e.
> on 26 Nov 2020
> * Qt 5.14 would be the minimum required version 7 months after Qt 5.15,
> i.e. on 26 Dec 2020.
> * Qt 5.15 LTS will be the minimum required version 12 months after its
> release, i.e. on 26 May 2021

(I'm not tied to any specific date in there, but you get the idea)


One thing I haven't really seen addressed yet is Krita's concerns about newer 
Qt versions, how do we want to handle that?

Regards,
Volker