[QGIS-Developer] When is Qt updated for the Windows releases?

[Nyall Dawson]

On 14 February 2018 at 20:15, Jürgen E. Fischer <jef at norbit.de> wrote:
> Hi Nyall,
>
> On Wed, 14. Feb 2018 at 19:30:49 +1100, Nyall Dawson wrote:
>> But what about dev releases? E.g. if we wanted to introduce 5.10 for 3.2 on
>> Windows, then switching over the dev builds alone isn't possible, right?
>
> Correct.
>
>
>> We'd have to update the Qt library for all builds (3.0.1 and above) and the
>> dev builds simultaneously. I guess we could theoretically time an upgrade to
>> occur just before a stable release (i.e. right before 3.2.0, when no more
>> 3.0.x builds will be released), but that sounds potentially dangerous.
>
> If you're after avoiding to do extra builds any point release should do.  I
> don't see a big issue - we'd just publish a new Qt on a point release along
> with the new qgis builds that already use them - as long QGIS is the only
> dependant.

I'm personally fine with this. I mean, generally Qt upgrades are
painless and don't introduce new bugs (especially the point releases).
The situation with 5.10 is an obvious exception - but I don't recall
ever having an issue like this in the past.  (Oh wait, let's add 5.6
and its QVariant mess to that list too... 5.6 was the worst Qt release
I've ever seen.)

>> >> So I'd hate to see the Windows builds locked to 5.9 indefinitely.
>
>> > Windows is not the only platform.  Debian unstable is also at 5.9
>> > currently, buster/testing 5.9,  stretch/stable has 5.7 (so we build without
>> > 3D there).  bionic (next ubuntu lts) also has 5.9.
>
>> Oh yeah, linux distros are a totally different matter and I'm not suggesting
>> any change there. I'm just curious about what the exact situation is with the
>> Windows builds.
>
> Why does that matter?  If the code builds with 5.9 and 5.10 then there's no
> QGIS issue.

Like I said above, I'm all in favour of upgrading Qt (I'd love to have
a windows 5.10.1 build). Manpower aside, I don't see any reason why we
wouldn't want the patch releases used as soon as they are available.
The point releases we should probably time just after our monthly
release so that the upgrade gets a full month of testing and there's
plenty of time to rollback if necessary. Bring on the upgrades I say!

This whole thread was just me trying to understand the
process/implications of the Windows build/release process.

Nyall