Development roadmap (updated August 10, 2022)

[barrykn]

August 10, 2022 update:

I still plan to do at least one more patcher release within the next few months, likely with some minor fixes and documentation updates, but I no longer expect to be adding any more major features. (At this point, OpenCore Legacy Patcher is now a more capable patcher and is probably better for most users.)

The previous update follows:

I plan to catch up on GitHub issues, pull requests, etc. at some point in the next few weeks, and continue patcher development after that. Sorry I basically disappeared for the last year. (I ended up running Catalina on my own Macs in 2021, but I'll need to use a patcher at some point pretty soon, so I have a personal need to not neglect this project in 2022 the way I did in 2021.)

The (very outdated) November 2, 2020 update follows:

(Now that Big Sur is released, this is outdated. I will revisit it after I fix a few critical issues, maybe in a week or two.)

This issue will be used to describe and track the roadmap for upcoming Big Sur Micropatcher development. At least in the near term, I plan to keep this issue locked and to edit it periodically (so there will be effectively no comments allowed on this issue).

As of this update (November 2, 2020) it looks like Apple is going to have an Apple Silicon Mac event on November 10, so I expect Big Sur GM is going to happen around that time. Also, there's stuff going on in my life that's nuts in terms of its impact on my ability to schedule things or manage my time (sorry I can't discuss in more detail in public, except that it's not exactly bad and it's not related at all to the US election), so I may not be able to work on the patcher again until this weekend. As a result, Big Sur Micropatcher v1.0 is almost certainly not going to happen until well after next week's Big Sur release. Sorry.

As of beta 9, WiFi seems stable for me now -- I'm no longer able to reproduce any of the problems that users still report on occasion -- but I'll still try to do some experiments that might lead to ways to improve the WiFi patch.

However, there are some other things I need to fix/improve in the patcher before v1.0. (Ideally I should at least file issues about these, to get them down in writing, but it's possible I may have not left myself with time to do that before the Big Sur release, unfortunately.)

Other issues can be fixed after v1.0, including issue #43, issue #60, maybe issue #80.

Issue #43 in particular will require massive changes to the patcher. However, I think I will try to do it not long after Big Sur Micropatcher v1.0, or possibly even before then, because I think it is going to benefit some Metal-capable Macs after all (not 2012 or later Macs, but mainly 2010/2011 iMacs I guess).

(Issue #80 might also require massive patcher changes, in a different way.)

[barrykn]

I just wrote this in a Reddit comment (and I think I should include it here too):

Even if Big Sur is released this week, the patcher is still going to be in beta for a while longer. The end of November or beginning of December might be a good guess for when v1.0 will be done; this is kind of a wild guess, but hopefully it's close enough to set everyone's expectations appropriately. Up to this point, there have been tons of issues with the patcher itself, but after I finish this weekend's v0.4 release, I think WiFi will be the most important remaining issue and I will be able to dive deeper into trying to fix it.

My plan for v1.0 is basically for a patcher that works similarly to v0.4, possibly a little easier to use, focused on 2011 and later Macs, especially 2012 and later, and hopefully with a better WiFi patch. Things like improved support for 2010 MacBooks (which don't have Metal GPUs so are kind of a lost cause anyway) are explicitly post-v1.0 goals. If nobody else manages to create a patcher with a GUI, I might eventually do that post-v1.0 as well.

I think this is also a good time to remind everyone that Mojave is still going to receive security updates for another year, and Catalina is still going to receive security updates for another two years. For most users, there is no immediate need to upgrade to Big Sur.

(What I guess I was really trying to say above is that things are still kind of up in the air regarding WiFi. I think it should be fixable but there's enough work to do on it that I can't be certain yet. I'll have a much better idea of where the WiFi situation stands in a few weeks probably.)