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MacOS 10.14 deprecation plan #3087
Description
Checking the support for MacOs versions, seems like 10.x versions are deprecated. Should be plan the upgrade of the test machines using 10.x?
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Checking the support for MacOs versions, seems like 10.x versions are deprecated. Should be plan the upgrade of the test machines using 10.x?
Activity
AshCripps commentedon Nov 22, 2022
Our minimum deployment target is set to 10.15 already but thats only for v18 and above so 10.14 is still supported by LTS lines still in support. I know we have a caveat that we can drop EOL systems at will but it might be worth waiting for a bit before dropping that.
firstly we need some more machines of later versions, we dont have any 12 or 13 machines to my knowledge nor do we have the capacity on the arm64 side for them. Intel should be fine due to the amount of space we have in orka.
richardlau commentedon Nov 22, 2022
It is worth discussing bumping the minimum deployment target for Node.js 20 (bearing in mind whatever we set will be it until the April 2026 End-of-Life date). If we bump to, e.g. macOS 11 we'd need to move where we build the x64 releases onto a macOS 11 machine (and probably would need to set up a x64 macOS 11 release machine unless we'd be comfortable compiling under Rosetta 2 on the arm64 machines (which we do anyway for the pkg builds)).
UlisesGascon commentedon Nov 25, 2022
Good! Let's discuss about it in the next meeting and build a plan 👍
mhdawson commentedon Nov 25, 2022
Moving to 11 as the minimum makes sense to me.
[-]MacOS 10.x deprecation[/-][+]MacOS 10.14 deprecation and HW reuse potential[/+]UlisesGascon commentedon Apr 11, 2023
As agreed in #3299 we will remove the MacOS 10.14 machines from the build pipelines. This open the opportunity to use the HW for other MacOS Versions. The deprecation will take place once Nodejs 14 reach the End-of-life at 2023-04-30.
Affected machines
Next steps (After 2023-04-30)
As only Orka VMs are affected we can do a backup and delete them easily:
I will need some help to remove the machines from Jenkins as I don't have the admin access to Jenkins. Should I ask for the access?
The empty slots that this machines will generate in Orka cluster will be managed in a separate discussion (#3240)
[-]MacOS 10.14 deprecation and HW reuse potential[/-][+]MacOS 10.14 deprecation plan[/+]mhdawson commentedon Apr 11, 2023
@UlisesGascon I'm happy to remove the machines from Jenkins. Are there other cases where you need jenkins access? If so then getting you access instead might make sense.
UlisesGascon commentedon Apr 11, 2023
@mhdawson I will need to add machines in the near future when we move ahead with #3240 🤔
mhdawson commentedon Apr 11, 2023
@nodejs/build I'm thinking giving @UlisesGascon Jenkins access makes sense. What do you think?
targos commentedon Apr 12, 2023
+1 from me
richardlau commentedon Apr 12, 2023
Also +1 from me.
docs: added Ulises Gascon in the Jenkins Admin list
docs: added Ulises Gascon in the Jenkins Admin list (#3328)
UlisesGascon commentedon May 1, 2023
Current Status
macos1014-x64-1_11012023,macos1014-x64-2_11012023andmacos1014-x64-3_11012023) with the new ones (macos1014-x64-1_01-may-2023,macos1014-x64-2_01-may-2023andmacos1014-x64-3_01-may-2023)Before
After
Next steps
This issue will be closed when:
sxa commentedon May 15, 2023
@UlisesGascon Did we verify if building on the later release with the minimum deployment target option of 10.14/10.15 still allows it to run ok on those versions?
julian-weinert commentedon Apr 10, 2025
I disagree entirely. 10.14 machines are still around a lot, especially in legacy systems and infrastructure installations.
The obsession with deprecating systems is entirely lost on me. If there are no system API changes that actually grant deprecating a system so be it.
But in a lot of cases it is simply a matter of decision.
nicholatian commentedon Sep 10, 2026
I kept one of my MacBook Pros on Mojave expressly because I knew it was a last stop before the new Gatekeeper changes and it serves wonderfully as a devops bellwether for latter day Intel-based macOS targeting. In general I collect older Macs because developing for them is difficult enough due to Apple’s policy of planned obsolescence, and so having them is handy when your job is to make software for others.
Node.js is one of many projects that unfortunately subscribes to an operationalised developer economy that marginalises the wider public by default. Most developers don’t have the normality of using huge container infrastructures like
orkaand coordinating all of these state-of-the-art devops at cost like well-funded open source projects with 501(c)3 money do. Instead, it’s usually a collection of droplets and a lot of scripting. The structure of Node.js’s governance simply doesn’t translate to the world everyone else operates in.This would be understandable if Node.js was an end user product and there was some rationalisation along the lines of “most of our customers use [relatively recent version],” but Node.js is built by developers, for developers.
Deprecating support matrices just for the sake of it makes sense in a paradigm of “software is infrastructure”, but that’s not something people without venture-, angel-, and/or state-backed funding have the luxury of contributing to and operating in on an equal footing. It just creates busywork for downstream who would rather be building useful things with what little time they have instead of orchestrating containers on cloud platforms they don’t have and can’t afford to rent.