Poll: Dropping net462 Support in log4net

[FreeAndNil]

With the recent changes in the Mono Project and the removal of Mono from GitHub Actions macOS images, we are considering dropping support for net462 in log4net.

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Background

• The Mono Project has transitioned stewardship to WineHQ. However, upstream maintenance is minimal, and binary releases are no longer being produced.
  • Mono announcement
• GitHub Actions has removed Mono from the macOS-15 images due to maintenance reasons.
  • actions/runner-images#12520
• As a result, continued support for net462 across Linux and macOS is becoming impractical.

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Proposed change

• Drop support for net462.
• Continue to support netstandard2.0, which works with:
  • .NET Framework 4.7.1 and higher
  • .NET 8 and higher

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Impact

The following appenders would be removed since they are not compatible with netstandard:

• AspNetTraceAppender
• EventLogAppender

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Request for feedback

We’d like to hear from the community, especially developers who:

• Still rely on net462 support
• Use the appenders mentioned above
• Have concerns about migrating to newer .NET versions

Your input will help us evaluate whether this change is reasonable for the next major release of log4net.

[fluffynuts]

I don't have a problem with removing net462 support, but it might be worthwhile to do a major version increment at the same time, to prevent someone with a legacy system from accidentally upgrading to a non-supported package, and to make it clear that there's a major breaking change (especially with removal of appenders). Also, that would conform to semver - breaking changes should require a new major version.

[FreeAndNil]

I fully agree - I changed the text above to:

Your input will help us evaluate whether this change is reasonable for the next major release of log4net.