Semi-off-topic, but I think that old software/drivers disappearing is rather sad from a historical record point of view. There are a lot of progressive stages of technological history that will be all but lost within a few years.
On the flip side, I completely understand why a business wouldn't want to keep publishing copies of the outdated software. Not only does it cost money, but it also implies that the company continues to support the product even if they no longer do. Even a lot of open source projects don't continue to provide source trees or binaries dating back to the first stages of the project.
~Bradley
Christofer C. Bell wrote:
On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 3:35 PM, Luke -Jr <luke@dashjr.org mailto:luke@dashjr.org> wrote:
What happens if someone wants to give their old HP printer to a charity still running Windows 98? Even if that someone had a copy of the 98 drivers, HP has said including those would be illegal...Well, then I guess that's a niche market better served by Linux. Personally, regardless of any Freedom concerns, I don't have any issue with vendors discontinuing support for ancient products. And out of curiosity, where is HP saying that including those drivers would be illegal? I don't often deal in stuff this old so I'm not familiar with the licensing. ;-)
-- Chris
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