2 ms·

The way I read this, you're not asking for OS upgrades for life, but you are asking for service support for life. You want to be able to use your old OS on you

by dpark 11y ago

The way I read this, you're not asking for OS upgrades for life, but you are asking for service support for life. You want to be able to use your old OS on your old Mac, but you also want your old software to keep running even if it depends on external services (which are not unchanging). Is that correct? If so, this is not meaningfully different than expecting upgrades for life. This is expecting perpetual backwards compatibility. If anything, lifetime upgrades is easier.

lisper 11y ago
> you are asking for service support for life No. What I'm asking for is to not have arbitrary restrictions imposed on me if I try to maintain old software beyond its service life. For example: I have a legally licensed copy of Snow Leopard. I would like to be able to run it on a VM, but I can't because the license doesn't allow it. (Yes, I know I can run Snow Leopard Server on a VM -- and I do -- but Snow Leopard Server is not quite the same as Snow Leopard.) I also have a legally licensed copy of Mavericks, but I have no way of doing a clean install of Mavericks since it has been pulled from the App Store. (Yes, I am told that some people have Mavericks in their purchased tab in the App Store. But I don't, probably because I bought a machine that had it already installed.) Likewise for iPhoto. I would also like to be able to install a new version of an application while keeping the old version. Or at the very least I would like to be able to roll back to an old version if I don't like the new version for some reason. With the App Store, I can't do any of these things.
- dpark 11y ago
  I don't disagree with any of that, but that all seems unrelated to "version ratchet". VM restrictions have nothing to do with being pushed to upgrade. The inability to do a clean install of Mavericks kind of does, but that seems like a crappy oversight rather than an intentional push Same for the app rollback scenario. That seems less an intention to push upgrades and more of a lack of investment in exposing older versions. I suspect that many app authors are happy with this one, though, because it reduces their support costs because the number of old installs can only decrease over time.

by dpark 11y ago

lisper 11y ago

> you are asking for service support for life No. What I'm asking for is to not have arbitrary restrictions imposed on me if I try to maintain old software beyond its service life. For example: I have a legally licensed copy of Snow Leopard. I would like to be able to run it on a VM, but I can't because the license doesn't allow it. (Yes, I know I can run Snow Leopard Server on a VM -- and I do -- but Snow Leopard Server is not quite the same as Snow Leopard.) I also have a legally licensed copy of Mavericks, but I have no way of doing a clean install of Mavericks since it has been pulled from the App Store. (Yes, I am told that some people have Mavericks in their purchased tab in the App Store. But I don't, probably because I bought a machine that had it already installed.) Likewise for iPhoto. I would also like to be able to install a new version of an application while keeping the old version. Or at the very least I would like to be able to roll back to an old version if I don't like the new version for some reason. With the App Store, I can't do any of these things.

dpark 11y ago
I don't disagree with any of that, but that all seems unrelated to "version ratchet". VM restrictions have nothing to do with being pushed to upgrade. The inability to do a clean install of Mavericks kind of does, but that seems like a crappy oversight rather than an intentional push Same for the app rollback scenario. That seems less an intention to push upgrades and more of a lack of investment in exposing older versions. I suspect that many app authors are happy with this one, though, because it reduces their support costs because the number of old installs can only decrease over time.