On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 12:35 AM, Leo Mauler
<webgiant@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Is it your contention that vendors should support
> a given software release forever? If so, what is
> your plan to ensure that free software developers
> start supporting every past release of their
> software? If you're not holding OSS developers
> to that standard, why are you holding commercial
> developers to it?
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.
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.