Re: Support of older Emacs versions

[Mark Diekhans]

Thanks for your thoughts.  What version of emacs is in Ubuntu
20?

We need to decide what is the minimum emacs version to test on
For an initial release of revived VM (8.3.0?) it would be good
to conservative with compatibility.  The README claims >= 22.0
and I suspect that it is easy to maintain for 8.3.0.

A some point, software needs to improve and move or stagnate.
People who want/need to run on older software need to use older
applications.  Also, emacs can be upgrade on older system, which
is my approach on system I don't manage.  Also, we can do a 8.3.0
release for older systems if really needed.

New feature development may be dependent on new version of
emacs.  It some cases, features could be optional and only work
on new version.  In others it might make the code more complex
and difficult to maintain compatibility.

We should decide to move the minimum version based for 8.3.0,
but also not be hamstrung by the past.




> Outside the developer world, many people run on systems long past even
> their official dates. (I know many people running Windows 7.) Now you
> could argue that anybody using VM is probably a developer - but that's
> not true, as I know because I get to support the other VM users in my
> department!  You could also argue that people like that aren't going
> to want to upgrade VM, and that may be true.
> 
> Debian 11 is not "old" - it will soon enter its LTS phase, which lasts
> until late 2026. My department is still in the process of switching
> from Ubuntu 20 to Ubuntu 21.
> 
>