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The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

almy.us

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Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#21

Post by anonzzzies »

eviks wrote: post #10
nextos wrote: post #3

This post ignores the Lindy effect. Things that have been around for pretty long are likely to stick around for much longer. For example, Unix, Emacs, or Firefox (Netscape) are likely to be quite popular 10 or 20 years down the line. The OS or the editor du jour is not. This is a good rule of thumb for choosing what to invest your time in.

Emacs and Firefox are not popular right now, and the author mentioned using even more niche apps with long history, and a lot of his challenges are with things that have been around breaking other things that have been around, so how does he ignore the effect?

> Emacs and Firefox are not popular right now

They are a lot smaller % than vs code or chrome, but compared to most other software they have a huge user base. They are popular software.

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#22

Post by BoomerMoment »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #9
worthless-trash wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What direction is its backwards compatability going ?

Worse. Windows 10 dropped 16-bit application support.

You mean a 64bit architecture literally cannot handle an 8bit instruction as its smallest register is 16bit without swapping modes?

This is an architectural problem not an OS constraint.

And they're completely correct to abandon this software in my honest opinion as the developers already have.

If you need this run a 32bit VM under the 64bit OS so the virtualised CPUs can handle the 16bit application.

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#24

Post by BoomerMoment »

anonzzzies wrote: post #20
BoomerMoment wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open software gets abandoned all the time, its not magically immune to this. Open and standardised file formats are the win.

It gets abandoned but unlike closed software, if you depend on it enough, you can continue using it forever. For some reason if GitHub says ‘updated 6 years ago’ it is not viable for people, but for many things, especially desktop apps, this doesn’t matter at all; it works fine and if you need updates, you can do them. The point is you can, while with closed software, you maybe can and sometimes with a lot of trouble…

I agree, provided the software isn't network reliant / accessible.

If the software were to explicitly depend on and moving to broke it that would be the nail in the coffin for me / make me question whether I want to spend the effort maintaining the project.

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#26

Post by steve1977 »

nextos wrote: post #3

This post ignores the Lindy effect. Things that have been around for pretty long are likely to stick around for much longer. For example, Unix, Emacs, or Firefox (Netscape) are likely to be quite popular 10 or 20 years down the line. The OS or the editor du jour is not. This is a good rule of thumb for choosing what to invest your time in.

Yes and no. Windows and macOS are still around. But not really in the form I'd like them to be (and they once were).

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#27

Post by anonzzzies »

BoomerMoment wrote: post #24
anonzzzies wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets abandoned but unlike closed software, if you depend on it enough, you can continue using it forever. For some reason if GitHub says ‘updated 6 years ago’ it is not viable for people, but for many things, especially desktop apps, this doesn’t matter at all; it works fine and if you need updates, you can do them. The point is you can, while with closed software, you maybe can and sometimes with a lot of trouble…

I agree, provided the software isn't network reliant / accessible. If the software were to explicitly depend on and moving to broke it that would be the nail in the coffin for me / make me question whether I want to spend the effort maintaining the project.

Yes, but for desktop software this is usually less of an issue. And at least you could fix it. When people are running ancient closed source software on Windows (Win 95 software apparently runs on Win 11), they don’t even think about the vulnerabilities and if they do, they cannot fix them. If you are so married to a software like the author seems to be, open is your best bet. And the OP is retired (well, at least 2021), so tinker time!

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#28

Post by steve1977 »

bruce511 wrote: post #13
arsome wrote: post #5

Stop using a Mac. I still run Windows 95 apps on Windows 11 without issue.

Hah, you'll get down voted to oblivion on HN for recommending Windows over Mac. But broadly speaking you are right. I run software today on Windows 11 that I first acquired in the 90s. Some of it console based that run under the command prompt. While Windows is justly famous for backward compatibility though, there are some exceptions. Firstly 16 bit programs don't run on 64 bit Windows. (Well, unless I fire up a 32…

> if long-term commitment to running existing, and past, software matters to you the maybe select an OS that prioritizes that over one that very much does not.

I guess that's the downside of vertical integration where the OS is basically just a means to sell hardware.

Re: The Threat of Discontinued Software (2021)

#30

Post by lodovic »

anonzzzies wrote: post #21
eviks wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emacs and Firefox are not popular right now, and the author mentioned using even more niche apps with long history, and a lot of his challenges are with things that have been around breaking other things that have been around, so how does he ignore the effect?

> Emacs and Firefox are not popular right now They are a lot smaller % than vs code or chrome, but compared to most other software they have a huge user base. They are popular software.

Definition nitpicking: They are only popular among a specific crowd. When less than 5% of all users use the software, I wouldn't call it popular globally.
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