Usually we link to our macOS history in these issues. Is #23011 (comment) the most recent statement of our history? Is there a better policy link?

Regardless, since Apple stopped issuing updates in July 2022, and dropping in Go 1.23 would mean we stop issuing security patches (for Go 1.22) at the release of Go 1.24 in Feb 2025, that seems entirely reasonable. If anything we seem late.

We had been following that pattern of adding a new macOS version and dropping the oldest one every 2 Go major releases (i.e., once a year) for a long while. After Go 1.17, there was a longer period where we supported older macOS versions, but Go 1.21 caught up by dropping two at once (proposal #57125).

If this proposal is accepted, then:

• Go 1.22 (security patches until Feb 2025) is the last release with macOS 10.15 support
• Go 1.23 (scheduled for Aug 2024 release) drops macOS 10.15, requires macOS 11

And if we continue dropping oldest macOS once-every-two-major-Go-releases after that, the pattern would be:

• Go 1.24 (security patches until Feb 2026) last to support macOS 11
• Go 1.25 requires macOS 12
• Go 1.26 (security patches until Feb 2027) last to support macOS 12
• Go 1.27 requires macOS 13
• Go 1.28 (security patches until Feb 2028) last to support macOS 13
• Go 1.29 requires macOS 14
• ...

It would be good to have a page somewhere indicating minimum OS versions currently required for the Go toolchain, and minimum OS versions supported by the Go runtime. (Apologies if there is one, but I haven't been able to find it.)

@lpar Minimum OS version information is there but can be made easier to find—see #41212 for that.

https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/MinimumRequirements lists the minimum OS versions we require.

Thanks. Do the minimum version requirements apply to the runtime for built binaries?

@lpar I'm not sure what you are asking. They apply to everything in the built binary, runtime included.

Thanks, that was what I was asking, whether ending support for macOS 10.15 meant that binaries compiled by the Go toolchain would no longer be supported on 10.15.

(Binaries built with Go 1.21.x still seem to work on some unsupported macOS versions, but of course that doesn't mean it's supported that they do.)

Based on the discussion above, this proposal seems like a likely accept.
— rsc for the proposal review group

Following our usual pattern, more or less:

Apple stopped issuing security updates for macOS 10.15 in July 2022.
Go 1.22 (security patches until Feb 2025) is the last release with macOS 10.15 support
Go 1.23 (scheduled for Aug 2024 release) drops macOS 10.15, requires macOS 11

Shouldn't Go only drop support for older OS's if both:

• they aren't supported by the vendor any longer (which seems to be the current stance)
• changes in the Go toolchain are actually required to continue supporting them

Naively, it appears that the second case isn't true for this (or many of the previous drops). Other than keeping some builders alive, is there any real downside to allowing the latest Go toolchain to continue working on these older OS releases that we already have working?

I'm asking because I like to stay with the current Go releases when developing, but this policy is going to force me to stop doing that, since a subset of my clients use OSs that are older than the officially supported versions out there.

The problem is builders. If we support something, we need a builder for it. Running builders that aren't supported by the vendor is bad, because they are 1) connected to the internet, and 2) not receiving security patches.

@randall77 it seems that security patches aren't the determining factor, as current versions of Go claim support for Linux kernels going all the way back to 2.6.32, which was EOL'd in March of 2016 (and versions of the 2.6.x line newer than that were EOL'd much earlier than that).

See #60792 , there are ongoing discussions there about bumping the linux min version.

RHEL 6 is still supported and runs a 2.6.32 kernel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux

OK, fair enough. I didn't realize any Linux distributions were still supporting it (the few I checked were far beyond it).

Anyway, definitely not happy about dropping support, but can understand it.

changes in the Go toolchain are actually required to continue supporting them

You'd be surprised how much ongoing work it takes to keep all our builders running. Much of that work isn't visible as changes in the Go toolchain. Not running older, unsupported builders frees up time for higher priority work.

No change in consensus, so accepted. 🎉
This issue now tracks the work of implementing the proposal.
— rsc for the proposal review group

Following our usual pattern, more or less:

Apple stopped issuing security updates for macOS 10.15 in July 2022.
Go 1.22 (security patches until Feb 2025) is the last release with macOS 10.15 support
Go 1.23 (scheduled for Aug 2024 release) drops macOS 10.15, requires macOS 11

Change https://go.dev/cl/549655 mentions this issue: doc/go1.22: pre-announce dropping macOS 10.15 support

This issue is currently labeled as early-in-cycle for Go 1.23.
That time is now, so a friendly reminder to look at it again.

Change https://go.dev/cl/558197 mentions this issue: main.star: don't test the main branch on macOS 10.15

What's left to do for this issue (wearing my release interrupts hat) -- just something in the 1.23 release notes? Or do we need a change to the old (pre-LUCI) coordinator as well?

Thanks for checking in. Here's a list showing the status of the remaining work here:

• disable macOS 10.15 builders on the main branch (keep it for release-branch.go1.22 and older) (CL 558197)
  • Maybe it's worth doing for coordinator too, even though it's going away. (CL 564215)
• add a note to Go 1.23 release notes (CL 563856)
• update the minimum macOS version in the x/build/internal/releasetargets package so that the macOS installer is updated to check for Big Sur as the new minimum (CL 564217)

I've sent a release note CL just now, but the releasetargets package will be undergoing some bigger changes soon enough. I'll take care of it later on.

All this needs to be done before Go 1.23 RC 1, but fine to ping if not finished by the release freeze.

Change https://go.dev/cl/563856 mentions this issue: doc/go1.23: document macOS requirements

Is there a need to update this line in the linker https://cs.opensource.google/go/go/+/master:src/cmd/link/internal/ld/macho.go;l=486 ? Perhaps it is fine either way... Or we can wait until the old version causes some trouble.

Thanks for pointing that out. The comment there says "This must be fairly recent" and "In general this can be the most recent supported macOS version." If I understand correctly, that means it shouldn't cause problems to set that version to macOS 14, the most recent macOS version now, and that there's no hard requirement for it to not fall below the minimum macOS version that Go supports. We didn't update it for when macOS 10.13 became unsupported.

For now, I sent CL 563857 which seems like a small and safe step forward today. We can see if there's something more principled we should do for maintaining the version there later on.

Change https://go.dev/cl/563857 mentions this issue: cmd/link/internal/ld: unify OS/SDK versions for macOS linking

Change https://go.dev/cl/564217 mentions this issue: internal/releasetargets: update MinMacOSVersion for Go 1.23

Change https://go.dev/cl/564215 mentions this issue: dashboard: don't test the main branch on macOS 10.15