Detail supported platforms/compilers for Botan 2

Prior related discussion tickets GH #111 #703

[ci skip]

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diff --git a/doc/manual/contents.rst b/doc/manual/contents.rst
index bf70c596e..cddfc4814 100644
--- a/doc/manual/contents.rst
+++ b/doc/manual/contents.rst
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ Contents
 
    index
    building
+   platforms
    python
    cli
    versions
diff --git a/doc/manual/platforms.rst b/doc/manual/platforms.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..17b5f6113
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/manual/platforms.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+Supported Platforms
+==============================
+
+For Botan 2, the tier-1 supported platforms are
+
+* Linux x86-64, GCC 4.8 or higher
+* Linux x86-64, Clang 3.5 or higher
+* Linux aarch64, GCC 4.8+
+* Linux ppc64le, GCC 4.8+
+* Windows x86-64, Visual C++ 2013 and 2015
+
+These platforms are all tested by continuous integration, and the developers
+have access to hardware in order to develop and test patches. Problems affecting
+these platforms are considered release blockers.
+
+For Botan 2, the tier-2 supported platforms are
+
+* Linux x86-32, GCC 4.8+
+* Linux arm32, GCC 4.8+
+* Windows x86-64, MinGW GCC
+* Apple OS X x86-64, XCode Clang
+* iOS arm32/arm64, XCode Clang
+* Android arm32, NDK Clang
+* FreeBSD x86-64, Clang 3.8+
+* IncludeOS x86-32, Clang 3.8+
+
+Some (but not all) of the tier-2 platforms are tested by CI. Things should
+mostly work, and if problems are encountered, the Botan devs will probably be
+able to help. But they are not as well tested as tier-1.
+
+Of course many other modern OSes such as OpenBSD, NetBSD, AIX, Solaris or QNX
+are also probably fine (Botan has been tested on all of them successfully in the
+past), but the developers do not run these OSes and may not be able to help so
+much in debugging problems. Patches to improve the build for these platforms are
+welcome. Note that as a policy Botan does not support any OS which is not
+supported by its original vendor; any such EOLed systems that are still running
+are unpatched and insecure.
+
+In theory any working C++11 compiler is fine but in practice, we only test with
+GCC, Clang, and Visual C++.  There is support in the build system for several
+commercial C++ compilers (Intel, PGI, Sun Studio, Ekopath, etc) all of which
+worked with older (C++98) versions of both the code and the compilers, but it is
+not known if the latest versions of these compilers can compile the library
+properly.