This is a bit off-topic for Poly Expression, but after some discussion about the supposed imminent demise of VST2 in favour of VST3 on another forum, I was wondering what the opinion of the resident devs was…? 
(Steinberg’s been threatening this for years, but it sounds like Cubase is starting to rebel slightly.)
Ableton Live 12 just sort of lumps all your VST2 and VST3 plugins together (encouraging the user to employ custom filters), so I’m always moving files out of the VST2 folder on my hard drive, to keep them out of my way.
I have two or three plugins I still use VST2 versions of. I’d rather not lose those if I can avoid it. But outside of that, I’d be pleased to never think about VST2 again.
VST2 had been unsupported for a long time now…
so whilst plugin devs and hosts still continue to support it, its eventual demise has been inevitable for years - so all now support vst3 as well.
I guess you could say we have gone through that transition now, and honestly, its probably for the best now that it dies… one less plugin format is a good thing 
also from a open source point of view, vst2 license was problematic and cleared up for vst3.
so, I don’t think its much of a a dev issue… rather, its a potential user issue
users with old plugins that they use, and no longer are developed - old projects that could no longer be loaded.
again, you could argue there has been a long enough ‘transition’ phase, users have had the opportunity to take necessary steps.
but frankly these ‘dangers’ of digital technology are much broader than just vst2 tech ( * )
I think you have to view most of digital technology as ephemeral.
( * )
on Macs, apple silicon mean old daws and plugins using intel will stop working when Rosetta is ‘discontinued’.
Even Windows, whilst better at backwards compatibility , is not immune from these kind of moves.
I think its been over 6 years since they withdrew the VST2 SDK from public.
But developers who had a license to use it could still carry on. I believe that a lot of the talk in the last few years involves a specific clause for developers who accept updated VST3 SDK licenses, since the interpretation of the clause is that by doing so their previous licenses are revoked, preventing them from making any updated versions of their VST2 plugins.
Since I am not a lawyer or commercial developer, I have not attempted to independently analyse the license terms relevant to this matter myself. I know that the likes of u-he have sometimes spoken about it though, explaining why they cant offer updated VST2 versions.
I am less certain about what the situation is in regards plugin hosts. What does ‘Cubase starting to rebel slightly’ refer to? A proportion of Cubase users?
this ship has sailed… who cares if devs don’t make vst2 version of their plugins?
when Steinberg initially announced ‘end of life’ for vst2, there were legitimate concerns.
many devs had not moved over to vst3, as vst2 was so dominant. so users were concerned.
also many were not happy, as they saw this killing of vst2 was solely to promote vst3.
not that this is unusual in software circles!
(perhaps this was just a realisation, that this ‘standard’ was owned by Steinberg, and they could do as they wish, not a nice feeling when an entire industry is built around it!)
frankly, the fears proved pretty baseless, the transition pretty smooth and painless.
(primarily, as vst2 was mature enough to not need continued support, to allow that transition)
todays we have more plugin formats, and frankly vst2 does not have the feature set we need (e.g. in ‘our space’ per note expression)
frankly… “so long, and thanks for all the fish”
Well indeed I dont care, and I havent cared for years. But some people clearly do (I havent exactly established why) so I dont mind talking about it.
The Madrona Labs synths doesn’t have VST3 versions. I think I saw something about VST3 being on the horizon as part of new “v2” versions of the plugins, though. I don’t currently use Madrona plugins in Cubase because of this, but otherwise no biggie for me.
Edit: …and now I realized the topic was about development, not generally about VST2 plugins/support. Sry. Anyways, I’ve seen people complaining about midi in VST3, but the only plugin I’ve ever made is VST3 and outputs midi, so no clue what the issue is/was. I’m so used to seeing some devs being extremely vocal about their very strong views (everything is either total crap or the most fantastic thing known to man), so I tend to ignore such discussions.
Thanks for the replies, I’d just encountered a slight disagreement about the likely end of VST 2 support and wanted to get a reality check. 
(I get the general impression that it won’t be missed.)
what has changed recently in this area?
It was quite a while ago ( a year?) that Steinberg removed the VST2 headers from the VST3 SDK.
this was a ‘major step’, as it meant if you wanted to use the latest VST3 headers you didn’t have access to the VST2 side.
this meant for Juce, you could not build vst2 with their embedded version of the vst sdk. however, they allow you to point to an alternative SDK, so you could use an older vst3 sdk - so it was still possible to build vst2 (and still is afaik)
bear in mind, that was not a big change…
before vst3 sdk, when you built juce you had to do this anyway, as juce could not distribute vst2 sdk due to its licence agreement.
(and then, like now, legally, you’d need to ‘agree’ to steinberg’s license)
ofc, there have been always debates/discussions about legality of distributing things (daws/plugins) using the vst2 sdk. (including reverse engineering the vst2 sdk)
but its kind of moot…
it’s unlikely the popular daws are going to want to dive into these legal murky waters or go on a crusade over it.
I think if anything, they are more likely to want to support alternative formats (clap), to try to reduce Steinberg’s influence.
as for smaller devs, if they want to do it, if they really want to (and take the ‘risk’)
but for now, doesn’t look like Steinberg are that interested.
as an aside, as some point (*) , its likely juce will drop vst2 support.
this would force the hands of many devs using juce ,so could have an larger impact.
but these same devs are able to easily release multiple plugin formats (vst3, au, clap), and probably already do - so plugin will still be available, but just not as vst2
( * ) I dont think they have yet, but haven’t checked latest release.