Future Boost plans

[lgbaldoni]

Hello,
release 4.6.0 still relies on boost 1.71, but master has switched to 1.76.

I package qBittorrent for openSUSE and for planning purposes I would like to know when the 1.76 dependency might land on stable releases.

Thanks

[luzpaz]

What would i take to modernize the boost dependency and also simultaenously offer backward compatibility for 'slower'/stable distros like Debian etc.... ?

[lgbaldoni]

What would i take to modernize the boost dependency and also simultaenously offer backward compatibility for 'slower'/stable distros like Debian etc.... ?

Making some features reliant on it optional I suppose, or backporting methods/rewriting things when only the older libraries are available. I'm currently attempting to patch things on my end in order to support boost 1.66 but even if I managed to do so it would be hardly maintainable.
On the other hand, it would be messy to maintain upstream, so I kind of understand.

Right now I'm stuck with 1.66 and even the next openSUSE release will be so, which probably means supporting it until December 2025.

Anyway I'm just asking for a heads up to avoid last-minute surprises here.

Regards

[luzpaz]

@glassez @Chocobo1 thoughts ?