On Sun, Nov 15, 2020 at 9:03 AM n952162 <n952...@web.de> wrote: > > 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... >
I'm sure MS has done it, but they're not really a good example to pick. MS actually has a really strong history of planned software lifecycles, and their core stuff has incredibly long support schedules. I'm not sure how the evergreen Win10 strategy has impacted things, but historically on OSes MS's policy is that they will security support an OS for 10 years after obsolescence (not introduction). Windows XP was supported until 2014. The complaints about end-of-support for MS are usually the result of the fact that those timelines are so incredibly long. People just take for granted that their stuff will be around forever and deploy software without any thought to how OS changes will work, lay off the entire development team a few years later, and then after half a decade scratch their heads about what they're going to do since nobody has any idea how to fix it and the end-of-life that was known to the day a full decade prior has arrived. If you're using technology you should be aware that basically all software has some kind of lifecycle policy. If it isn't written down, then you should assume that the policy is that it will stop working without any promises or warning. If you're willing to just keep migrating to the latest and greatest then you don't have to worry about it so much. However, if you like to keep using the same stuff and manage your changes, then you need to plan around this stuff. You could always use a distro like RHEL that has a distro-level support policy. They would probably backport security fixes and such for anything they're distributing where they're promised. When you buy into an OS with more formal support processes one of the things you're buying into is defined timelines that you can plan your own work around. That doesn't necessarily mean that those timelines will be as long as you want them to be - they're just written down. -- Rich
