Hey look another thing Apple "simplified". Really not happy with this trend of dropping support/feature and calling it "we simplified it".
“This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old”
151–160 of 217 posts
Re: “This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old”
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I were Apple, right now I'd be more concerned with losing customers to Android devices. Case in point: we have an iPad here that is still on the iOS 5 generation it came with. It has been widely reported that iOS 6 was slower (as well as breaking things like Google Maps), iOS 7 was slower still (as well as making various visual styling changes we don't like) and both iOS 6 and iOS 7 have suffered at least one seve…
It is a good point and I agree with you it can be annoying to be forced to upgrade perfectly good software. But it does cut both ways. Legacy support is generally good for customers, but a burden for developers. As far as development and having to spend money on hardware, though, I'd say Android is far worse than Apple in that regard. Android still has nearly half of devices running 2.x and the screen sizes are all o…
20.2% running 2.x. https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
Re: “This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old”
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about all non-hackers who don't know what a "file format" is, but may have important documents in decade-old formats? "Normal" people are not only not trained that they should keep upgrading lest they perish; they will ask you with bewilderment, "why I'm supposed to throw away that perfectly working machine after only 3 years?".
If they're not upgrading, they're not facing the horrible, insurmountable problem OP is.
They are if they need to send a copy to someone with the newer version.
Re: “This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old”
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
>if there are patent-encumbered formats involved. Patents would not discourage manual conversion. I.E., a human looks at the old presentation and recreates it in the new software. I'm just not sure that there are any presentation worth this cost. God knows that most presentations I have been subjected to are not.
Even then I'm not convinced, without talking to a lawyer, that it would be safe to recreate in a patent-encumbered format. Regardless of how well patents in general might or might not serve their original purpose, I tend to think that patents that are essentially just locking up data formats do not encourage progress in the way that they are supposed to. I think the US was onto something when it came to copyright and…
I think this is a non-issue for the bulk of any business that does this. An Microsoft or Apple is going to sue a business that upgrades documents in old formats to their newer formats? Maybe, but I'd be surprised. If anything there'd probably be licensing.
Re: “This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old”
#155Sadly, it seems like a business opportunity: "we'll convert formats for you when your vendor drops the ball."
Unfortunately, it could be a very expensive business to get into if there are patent-encumbered formats involved. In the cases where it's most likely to be useful, it also seems least likely to happen.
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Re: “This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old”
#156What if someone maintained an online "virtual museum" of old emulated machines and operating systems? This could be done as SaaS, with some value add tools for converting to modern formats thrown in.
Amusing, interesting for history's sake, and possibly useful, but licensing issues would kill it for closed source, and it's not needed for things with permissive licenses because you can already get the source for old versions and run it yourself.
Some people would pay for something already set up for them. Microsoft might like the idea and support it, as it furthers their backwards compatibility story.
Re: “This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old”
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
To play devil's advocate, one could say the same for a lot of open source software: it's great until it breaks. Your claim implies that broken proprietary software is bad because you can't access the source code, while mine implies that broken open source software is bad because there might be no company or organization dedicated to providing support.
Irrelevant; you can fix (or pay/trade/beg someone else to fix) FLOSS. You can't say the same for closed source.
You can also patch the binaries of proprietary software, technically possible, but exactly as unfeasible as your solution when you want to get stuff done.
Re: “This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old”
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
For example, if you had your own compiler which generated a.out output, then the Linux 1.2 switch to ELF would have broken the code in a similar backward incompatible way, despite there being no proprietary code involved. (Standards wouldn't have helped either.)
I'd imagine if it doesn't work though, in contrast to the OP's situation, you could spin up a virtual machine with a pre-1.2 version of Linux and run the code without having to pay anything to do so. Also this is a quite different situation to reading a document.
I'm having trouble locating a (floppy?) image that old but I'd love to try - AFAICT VirtualBox was written with kernel 2.6+ in mind.
Edit:
Debian: http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/Debian-0.93R6/disks/
RedHat: http://archive.download.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/1.0/en/o...
Re: “This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old”
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
As they say: "patches welcome". Do you also implement your own OS from scratch, or do you rely on others? Every FOSS OS I know of has patches coming out on near-daily basis.
"Patches welcome" is an aggressive, user-hostile, anti-social response to being told that the thing you suggested does not work . It's telling the user to fuck off because your own suggestion was flawed. clarry didn't run to HN and scream "pdf.js sucks!".
No, it isn't.
It's the whole point of FOSS. If it doesn't work for you, fix it.
This criticism is especially off-base given that the OP said he wanted something he could control. Use the source, Luke!
Re: “This presentation can’t be opened because it’s too old”
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're reading too much into that, or have a chip on your shoulder, or both. "Patches welcome" is an invitation, a smiling, friendly, we-think-you're-good-enough-and-want-your-help, open-handed gesture that is meant to encourage cooperation and evoke the deeply human drive to help others.
nknighthb is completely right. It is user hostile. It even makes a huge assumption, that clarry is programmer in the first place. With "Patches welcome" you might as well be saying "If you don't like it, spend a year learning [Language] to fix this issue." How is that anything other than user hostile? If my mom can't open a pdf in pdf.js, I'm not going to tell her "Well mom, patches welcome."
Give that clarry is a) posting on HN and b) apparently at least contemplating writing his/her own OS at some point, the assumption that he/she is a programmer is anything but "huge".