Re: [Qemu-devel] What's the next QEMU version after 2.9 ? (or: when is a good point in time to get rid of old interfaces)

[Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com>]

On 24.03.2017 23:10, John Snow wrote:
> 
> 
> On 03/08/2017 03:26 AM, Thomas Huth wrote:
>>
>>  Hi everybody,
>>
>> what will be the next version of QEMU after 2.9? Will we go for a 2.10
>> (as I've seen it mentioned a couple of times on the mailing list
>> already), or do we dare to switch to 3.0 instead?
>>
>> I personally dislike two-digit minor version numbers like 2.10 since the
>> non-experienced users sometimes mix it up with 2.1 ... and there have
>> been a couple of new cool features in the past releases that would
>> justify a 3.0 now, too, I think.
>>
>> But anyway, the more important thing that keeps me concerned is: Someone
>>  once told me that we should get rid of old parameters and interfaces
>> (like HMP commands) primarily only when we're changing to a new major
>> version number. As you all know, QEMU has a lot of legacy options, which
>> are likely rather confusing than helpful for the new users nowadays,
>> e.g. things like the "-net channel" option (which is fortunately even
>> hardly documented), but maybe also even the whole vlan/hub concept in
>> the net code, or legacy parameters like "-usbdevice". If we switch to
>> version 3.0, could we agree to remove at least some of them?
>>
>>  Thomas
>>
> 
> As others have stated, we need a few releases to deprecate things first.
> 
> Maybe we should develop a serious plan to develop some of our legacy
> interfaces first.
> 
> Maybe 2.10 can introduce a list of things we want to deprecate,
> 2.11 can be the transition release,
> and then 3.0 can cut the cord and free of us our terrible burden?
> 
> I have a list of things I want to axe...

I've started a Wiki page with such a list here:

http://wiki.qemu-project.org/Features/LegacyRemoval

Feel free to amend!

 Thomas