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On Sun, Nov 15, 2020 at 9:03 AM n952162 <n952162@×××.de> wrote: |
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> |
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> I'm trying to think of another language that just tossed it's whole body of legacy code out the window ... okay Microsoft word does that to its user-base regularly, it's true... |
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> |
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I'm sure MS has done it, but they're not really a good example to |
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pick. MS actually has a really strong history of planned software |
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lifecycles, and their core stuff has incredibly long support |
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schedules. I'm not sure how the evergreen Win10 strategy has impacted |
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things, but historically on OSes MS's policy is that they will |
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security support an OS for 10 years after obsolescence (not |
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introduction). Windows XP was supported until 2014. |
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The complaints about end-of-support for MS are usually the result of |
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the fact that those timelines are so incredibly long. People just |
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take for granted that their stuff will be around forever and deploy |
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software without any thought to how OS changes will work, lay off the |
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entire development team a few years later, and then after half a |
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decade scratch their heads about what they're going to do since nobody |
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has any idea how to fix it and the end-of-life that was known to the |
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day a full decade prior has arrived. |
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If you're using technology you should be aware that basically all |
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software has some kind of lifecycle policy. If it isn't written down, |
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then you should assume that the policy is that it will stop working |
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without any promises or warning. |
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If you're willing to just keep migrating to the latest and greatest |
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then you don't have to worry about it so much. However, if you like |
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to keep using the same stuff and manage your changes, then you need to |
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plan around this stuff. |
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You could always use a distro like RHEL that has a distro-level |
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support policy. They would probably backport security fixes and such |
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for anything they're distributing where they're promised. When you |
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buy into an OS with more formal support processes one of the things |
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you're buying into is defined timelines that you can plan your own |
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work around. That doesn't necessarily mean that those timelines will |
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be as long as you want them to be - they're just written down. |
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-- |
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Rich |
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