Re: SunOS 4 support?

[Paul Eggert]

Harlan Stenn <address@hidden> writes:

> I'm pretty sure we still have bunch of SunOS 4 users in the population I
> have to support.

Which population would that be?  Computer museum operators?

Seriously, it's been many years since I've heard of anybody using
SunOS 4 to run Autoconf-generated scripts, not counting computer
museums.  Sun itself stopped issuing new patches for SunOS 4 in 2000,
and as of 2003 Sun no longer even offered a subscription for telephone
support or access to old patches.  If you want SunOS 4 support right
now, you need to pony up some real money and get what is called a
"Custom Quote", which requires a big mucky-muck in Sun to approve it.
I'd be surprised to hear that anybody is doing that for SunOS 4.

I would say that the oldest Sun release we need to worry about
nowadays is the oldest one that Sun still supports, namely Solaris
2.6.  And, since Sun will stop supporting 2.6 on July 23, we can stop
worrying about 2.6 then.  Solaris 7 support is scheduled to end on
August 15, 2008, so we need to worry about it for a couple more years.
Solaris 8 and later are still being shipped and so will be worthy of
our attention for at least the next five years.

Reference:

http://www.sun.com/service/eosl/solaris/solaris_vintage_eol_5.2005.html