Dropping support for .NET Framework 4.x and netstandard2.0 in 12.0

[kekekeks]

We are planning to drop support for netstandard2.0 target. It currently prevents us from using modern .NET APIs and features including default interface implementations, which prevents us from being more flexible with backwards compatibility.

It's becoming more and more of a maintenance burden with every passing year and the efforts of maintaining compatibility with legacy .NET could be spent elsewhere.

[wieslawsoltes]

So what will be lowest version now? net6.0 ?

[kekekeks]

The current plan is to keep supporting net6.0 for 12.0.x timeframe. With .NET 6.0 being officially out of support we might be jumping to .NET 8.0 as the minimum target if needed. I'd personally prefer to keep support for .NET 6.0 target for 12.x, but can't guarantee that.

[rabbitism]

Is it possible to share some telemetry info about tfm ratios?

[kekekeks]

netstandard2.0 + net4x is less than 4% including library projects, net4x is less than 2%

[Firedragonweb]

Is the decision final or do you still take input on that? We are multitargeting net8 and netfx and, sadly, we won't be able to drop .NET Framework for our software anytime soon. It would make life very difficult for us if we are being cut off from Avalonia progress.

[MikeCodesDotNET]

While we are moving forward with dropping .NET Standard 2.0 in the core platform, we do offer extended support for organisations that require additional support needs. This is already available as a service we provide to some enterprise support customers, and we would continue to support netfx scenarios under that model.

If your team relies on .NET Framework and would find this kind of arrangement helpful, we’d be happy to talk about what extended support would provide you.

Keep in mind though, that this change will be coming with v12, so you've plenty of time to migrate from netfx.

[ShadowMarker789]

If you want the designer and source-generators to keep working in visual-studio it'll have to be NS2.0 compliant, iirc - because VS is still NetFX.

All of my Avalonia work has always been with the latest-and-greatest .Net, slowly migrating to Avalonia in favor of old legacy NetFX 3.5 WPF and WinForms projects.

(Btw, we're almost finished migrating away from VB6! So, I can understand the legacy support, but eventually one must draw a line in the sand for how long things are going to be supported when they prevent one from doing the new and cool things)

Wish y'all the best!

[maxkatz6]

Current AvaloniaVS designer doesn't reference Avalonia package directly, same goes with our source generators.
But that's a good point to be careful about.

[CodeDevAM]

I would suggest switching directly to .NET 8.0. If you're making a change anyway, take the opportunity to make a clean break and make your life easier for future developments. In my experience, .NET 8.0 has some important new features compared to .NET 6.0 that I wouldn't want to miss.

Nevertheless, the impact of dropping support for netstandard2.0 is probably significantly greater than the jump from .NET 6.0 to .NET 8.0.

[LaurentInSeattle]

Since this V12 powerful turbo engine will not be released tomorrow morning why not plan for .Net 10, which is scheduled for this coming November ?

[thevortexcloud]

Since this V12 powerful turbo engine

It took me several attempts to understand what you even meant by this. I am guessing some over eager auto complete was involved?

which is scheduled for this coming November ?

Avalonia's releases are generally not tied to .NET's. But I would argue against going straight for 10. It can take ~1 year just for companies to have the time/confidence to upgrade to a new .NET release. By the time 10 comes out, 8 will also likely still have decent adoption compared to 10's ~0% adoption.

[fforjan]

Indeed. 4.8 is still in heavy use by legacy code bases as well as in situations where upgrading is impossible.

While it's true, how many of those are using Avalonia ?
I tend to believe Avalonia is used on more recent code base with also multi platform in mind
(I would expect windows only app to be wpf, not Avalonia)

[thevortexcloud]

While it's true, how many of those are using Avalonia ?

From personal experience, I can say at least one. How statistically significant that is, I can't say. I do however have other projects that use Avalonia and target 8.0 and 4.8/net standard 2.0. But leaving the Avalonia version alone is not a big deal in those cases, since it's not used for anything critically important.

[kerams]

why not plan for .Net 10, which is scheduled for this coming November

Because Avalonia is a library, so you target the lowest framework that has all the APIs you need.

[vxzms]

So will you reconsider #15615?

[ShadowMarker789]

There is some desire to migrate to CsWin32 - which probably includes everything that Vortice had for Direct2D.