[LaLaLand122]

Exactly!

People point out RedHat provide newer compilers (and newer patched C++ standard libraries depending on the default one!) and he says "It's not us, it's our customers. And no, they won't use any compiler which isn't the system default".

Either you only use the system defaults, and that includes the old Boost included with RHEL, or you don't. I guess he includes a private Boost copy as part of his project. Well, include a private GCC too then. A dependency is a dependency

Those customers have silly requirements for no reason. The whole world shouldn't make efforts to accommodate them.

I am going to bet those customers are going to argue about "stability". All this comes from people reading "stable" as "rock solid, never crashes, always works as expected" when in the case of RHEL it actually means "it doesn't change, no new bugs introduced, and you can relly on the old bugs staying there". Those customers just need educating.

[pjmlp]

Customer is king, when one needs them, it is the one trying to make money that needs to accommodate.

When not, others will.

[yagni_dev]

Customer is king indeed but why they expect/want to use latest boost if their infra is old? Use the latest version your infra supports, simple!

[LaLaLand122]

The customer

- "Wants" "stable", i.e. the default gcc

- Doesn't care what Boost version is used

- Pays the developer

The developer

- Wants the latest toolchain

- Wants the latest Boost

- Makes money

The developer

- Accepts using an old compiler because Boost keeps compatibility with it

- Does not pay Boost developers for it

There is no single entity that wants old compiler (other than to satisfy others) and new Boost.