[mappu]

At my $DAYJOB devs are free to jump on latest builds for containers we operate (SaaS / API services).

But we also deliver end-user apps with Go, and those have to stick to 1.20 for compatibility with older client OSes. 1.21 made significant cuts and so we will likely be on 1.20 for some years to come.

[drchase]

Which older OSes? The last 1.20 dot release was earlier today, some years from now it will be stale and probably insecure, though that matters less for internal apps than for internet-exposed ones.

[mappu]

Windows 7, Server 2012, macOS 10.13 + 10.14, and so on. Together it makes up nearly 10% of our user base.

We have a very slow-moving customer base and their choice of OS is out of our control. At this time last year there were still more Windows 7 users than Windows 11 in telemetry.

Those old OSes are leaving security support, but actually Windows Server 2012 still gets updates from Microsoft (ESU) until 2026 so i'm surprised you dropped it already.

Yes, Go1.20 will get insecure, but until that usage drops, not much can be done.

Well, one thing: in the past, in order to maintain support for Server 2008, for a long while we built the app with both Go1.10 and Go1.(newer) and switched at install time. I don't recommend it! Every year was more difficult as the open source packages drifted away from compatibility and our build system had to still support GOPATH. Eventually we finally abandoned Go1.10!

[signal11]

I thought the 1.21 cuts were for out of support Windows versions only? Eg Windows 7.

You’ll have to also factor that 1.20 won’t receive security updates any more.

[mappu]

Server 2012 was dropped in https://github.com/golang/go/issues/57004 and it's still in security support. My numbers are somewhat similar to @olivielpeau in that thread.