Re: Deprecating old Go versions (and the ports that use them)

Am Fri, Dec 05, 2025 at 09:47:54AM -0500 schrieb Adam Weinberger:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I just scheduled 3/4 of our Go ports for removal, along with 75 ports. I
> want to explain why, and what we should do about it.
> 
> TL;DR--75 ports need to try altering USES=go:1.2x -> USES=go, because
> likely none of the ports actually need to be deleted!
> 
> This is going to cause a scramble up-front here, but it's for our own good.
> 
> ============================
> Why are we deleting Go versions?
> ============================
> 
> Go supports only the latest two minors. All minors older than that have
> known bugs and security holes that will never be fixed. Currently we
> provide SIX minors, which frankly is irresponsible. I'm going to start
> being aggressive about culling old Go versions.
> 
> Currently, these 75 ports (plus another 68 for go1.24, and 51 for 1.25) pin
> themselves to a Go version with
> 
>     USES=go:1.23
> 
> This *almost always* stems from a misunderstanding:

The reason all these ports do that is that there is no USES=go:1.23+, so
when you need go version 1.23 and 1.22 is the default, you must put in
go:1.23 or the port won't build.

This sort of thing can be 100% avoided by adding support for "this version
of the go toolchain or any later version" to the ports framework so that
people can tag their intent precisely.

Yours,
Robert Clausecker

-- 
()  ascii ribbon campaign - for an encoding-agnostic world
/\  - against html email  - against proprietary attachments