<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 12:35 AM, Leo Mauler <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:webgiant@yahoo.com">webgiant@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d">--- On Sun, 7/27/08, Christofer C. Bell <<a href="mailto:christofer.c.bell@gmail.com">christofer.c.bell@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br></div><div class="Ih2E3d">
> Is it your contention that vendors should support<br>
> a given software release forever? If so, what is<br>
> your plan to ensure that free software developers<br>
> start supporting every past release of their<br>
> software? If you're not holding OSS developers<br>
> to that standard, why are you holding commercial<br>
> developers to it?<br>
<br>
</div>Over here we have the real apples and oranges, sadly you're the one making that particular kind of comparison. OSS means support is *nice* but not necessary, because anyone can step in and support the software, or maintain and improve it themselves. Closed-source means support is *necessary* or the software eventually becomes little more than garbage bits on a hard drive.</blockquote>
<div><br></div><div>Leo, I get what you're saying, but in the real world, no one is running Slackware 2.0 (what I started with in 1994). The software world, even the open source software world, does eventually move on. The point of open source licenses is to encourage a community effort to improve the state of the art. Maintaining extremely old software, even open source software, devolves into a futile individual effort. Everyone else moves on.</div>
<div> </div></div>-- <br>Chris<br><br><br><br>
</div>