[mythtv] When will we deprecate Qt 5 and qmake/configure?

[Scott Theisen]

On 2026/08/09 12:04, Paul Harrison via mythtv-dev wrote:
> On 09/08/2026 14:51, David Hampton wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 2026-08-09 at 13:12 +0100, Paul Harrison via mythtv-dev wrote:
>>> On 09/08/2026 04:02, Scott Theisen wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 2026/08/02 23:54, Gary Buhrmaster wrote:
>>>>> On Sun, Aug 2, 2026 at 8:24 PM Paul Harrison via mythtv-dev
>>>>> <mythtv-dev at mythtv.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Has anything changed since the last time this was discussed?
>>>>>> The
>>>>>> problem
>>>>>> with removing support for configure/qmake is most if not all
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> packages created for the various distros use it. Yes they can
>>>>>> be
>>>>>> updated
>>>>>> to use cmake but with Myth falling out of popularity a lot of
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> packager maintainers no longer use MythTV themselves so are
>>>>>> they going
>>>>>> to bother to update to cmake or just say sod it lets not
>>>>>> bother? Could
>>>>>> be another nail in the coffin for the project?
>>>> On the other hand, if we never say you should switch to CMake, no
>>>> one
>>>> will.
>>>>
>>> Seriously why are you forcing everyone to use CMake! Why change it in
>>> the first place? The project has been using configure/qmake since its
>>> birth with no problems. It's mature, stable, works well and is well
>>> documented and understood. It seems to be another of those things you
>>> and David like to do that change something just for the sake of it
>>> with
>>> little thought as to why you are making the change. What are the
>>> benefits? How does this change affect other users like packagers for
>>> example.
>> The cmake work was done to solve a specific problem.  At the time there
>> were three completely different build systems for MythTV.  One to build
>> on unixish systems, one to build for android, and one to build for
>> windows.  The cmake work was done to create a single build system that
>> can build all three families of targets.
>>
>> David
>>
>
> Well that is a good enough reason to keep the CMake support, I would 
> question if there are enough users using Windows and Android to make 
> all the effort worthwhile. The point I'm trying to make is if all the 
> packagers are using configure/qmake then removing support for it is 
> going to have a negative effect on the already falling users we have. 

My tentative idea was to deprecate configure for the version 37 release 
and remove it for the version 38 release to allow the packagers time to 
convert.  I was not suggesting to get rid of configure without any 
advance warning, hence "deprecate".  I'm sorry if that was unclear.

> For example the Ubuntu distro and PPA builds use it which accounts for 
> 70%+ of the 700ish registered users on smolt. We need to make sure the 
> package maintainers, not just for Ubuntu but also Gentoo, Redhat, Arch 
> etc are OK with using CMake before removing support for configure/qmake. 

https://github.com/MythTV/packaging has the Ubuntu PPA build 
instructions, so we can change that directly.  (I think the only other 
one from that repository that is used is macOS.  I know Gentoo's is 
elsewhere, but I don't know where the Red Hat or Arch's are.)

Regards,

Scott