When to drop feature check

[xmflsct]

To maintain backward compatibility, tooot has a feature check if a server supports certain feature, by comparing its version with a static list of features tooot supports. Over time this list can grow too large that makes it difficult to maintain.

There seems to be no statistics of instance versions globally, to know when could be a good time to drop feature check. Dropping feature check means tooot would assume all instances would support certain feature, and if it does not, the app may crash or sometimes certain feature just doesn't work.

Would half a year be a good timing? Herewith a handy list of when minor versions were released. At the time of writing, mid December 2022, it seems reasonable to drop feature check below v3.5.0 which is more than half year old.

• v4.0 (Nov 14, 2022)
• v3.5 (Mar 30, 2022)
• v3.4 (May 16, 2021)
• v3.3 (Dec 27, 2020)

https://mastodon.fediverse.observer/list can be used as a rough estimation of percentage of servers that are still functioning on older versions.

[xmflsct]

Dec 18, 2022

Total instances: 10335 (100%)
Lower than v4.0: 2085 (20.17%)
Lower than v3.5: 597 (5.78%)
Lower than v3.4: 352 (3.4%)

When ranked by either the total amount of users, or last 1/6 months of active users, most of the instances are already on the latest v4.0 series. There are very few exceptions like pawoo.net (on 3.3.3) which has a mixed reputation in the fediverse, and mastodon.cloud (on 3.4.6).

Based on this analysis, feature check for instances below version v3.5 can be dropped pretty soon.