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The article states this: > The money they made from these customers hasn’t expired; neither has their responsibility to fix defects. This is wrong. We don't a

The article states this: > The money they made from these customers hasn’t expired; neither has their responsibility to fix defects. This is wrong. We don't ask for mandatory lifetime guarantees in any other industry I'm aware of, and perhaps more importantly, much of what is done in the field wouldn't be possible if it did (could you imagine having to continue to maintain an IE5 webpage for another twenty years?). It goes on: > In its defense, Microsoft probably could point out that its operating systems have come a long way in security since Windows XP, and it has spent a lot of money updating old software, even above industry norms. However, industry norms are lousy to horrible, and it is reasonable to expect a company with a dominant market position, that made so much money selling software that runs critical infrastructure, to do more. If I buy a toaster it comes with a one year warranty, maybe. A nice car might come with a five year or two hundred thousand mile limited warranty. Microsoft sold a product at a fraction of that cost and supported it, unconditionally, for 8 years. 8. And they supported it for five more after that with appropriate arrangements with enterprises (and after a select few enterprises who somehow concluded that paying some engineering salaries at Microsoft for dedicated support was cheaper than upgrading). That's a 13+ year lifetime of support on what was an $80 a license product. Industry norms can only be "horrible" insofar as there's only been a serious industry for 30 years... And XP was supported for half of it (man, I suddenly feel old). My point is that there is no world in which the "cash-strapped National Health Service" is not the primary entity which was grossly negligent in its maintenance of critical infrastructure. Stepping back and looking at the article as a whole and less at specific inflammatory parts, it is, well, filled with inflammatory parts. It starts as a thin attack piece on Microsoft for being slow to provide free support for a 16 year old product, offhandedly references IoT for some added scare factor, then starts calling for action (from both corporate and government actors) without any serious discussion on either the merits of the proposed actions or the impacts taking them would have on those organizations or the implications that they would create for future actors. But hey, if you're a fan of Bruce Schneier's more recent musings, at least you'll enjoy the conclusion: That we must legislate software, and fast.

_ph_ 9y ago
Yes, if you buy a toaster, you can easily replace it. The problem with XP is, that it is a component of larger systems, sometimes not even user-visible. Just take ATMs or some hospital equipment. We can either patch them, or force them to be decommissioned, but I fear, without some regulations, everyone keeps just hoping for the best.
- based2 9y ago
  Even, if we have SambaOrg, WineHQ, ReactOS and LibreOffice.
fulafel 9y ago
In many (most?) countries product failures resulting from design defects are covered by consumer protection laws without time limit.
corney91 9y ago
>If I buy a toaster it comes with a one year warranty, maybe. A nice car might come with a five year or two hundred thousand mile limited warranty. The analogy falls down when you consider it's possible to fix your own toaster or car, or take it to some other engineer to do it. Cars last longer than 13 years due to servicing at garages and things like that. I agree that the implementation at the NHS is clearly awful, but it's crazy that staying on top of security means you're essentially forced to pay Microsoft more for a newer version of Windows (as well as retraining due to changes, retesting all your software). It's a mess of a situation and I don't know the solution, but continuing your analogy Microsoft should share the Windows source when they no longer support it so that third-parties can. I know that's never going to happen btw, just that's what's reasonable by your analogy.
- Joeri 9y ago
  They wouldn't need to share the source with everyone, just with authorized software repair companies. It would be a win-win, microsoft can cut back on support duration, they can collect a rent from the repair companies, there would be a new business sector, and customers could stay on older windows versions until a time of their choosing. Like with cars the older the version you are on the more expensive the upkeep, so it would be cheaper to move to a new windows version regularly, meaning microsoft wouldn't lose much in the way of windows license revenue.
  - corney91 9y ago
    Good point, I intentionally left the phrase "open-source" out of my comment for that reason but didn't think it all the way through. There's clearly a need for this sort of support so it makes senses. Either that, or Windows should stop being overhauled every few years, making upgrades too costly to implement, and just focus on security and bug fixes. That's obviously not going to happen though.
agumonkey 9y ago
Maybe the old notion of business (for material artefact) is obsolete. As an open source friendly computer guy the notion of warranty is moot. Society self organized around delegation and ignorance, thus needs for warranty. Maybe it's time to redistribute knowledge and means so people can help themselves.
kuschku 9y ago
Okay, then an alternative suggestion. If a company wants to stop supporting software, they have to publish the entire source, documentation, and guides for how to work in it. So that others can then fix it. I can fix a toaster. I can’t fix a smart toaster with DRM.
eveningcoffee 9y ago
I think you are getting it very wrong. What guarantee used to mean is that if product has manufacturing defects then these will appear within limited period of time. Having a 5 year guarantee for a car does not mean that it will fall apart after this period of time. It means that defects that occur after this period of time are due to wear and not manufacturing defects. The main difference between a software product and say a car is that it appears that manufacturing defects of the software would take much longer to appear than 2 or 5 years. Sometimes it may take even 10-20 years for a defect to appear. The main issue with Microsoft software is that the problem, when it becomes apparent, can not be fixed by the owner as it could be with any other product. This is caused by the closed nature of the Microsoft software. Another thing you get wrong is that you call XP a $80 product. It is not. It is a $80 x number of owners product.
- falcolas 9y ago
  > can not be fixed by the owner as it could be with any other product I think this is nice in theory, but impractical with our current level of technology. If your toaster broke, would you be able to fix it? How many owners have the analog circuit knowledge to fix even a toaster from the pre-IC world? Would you be willing to invest the tens of hours and dollars required to fix it? Or would you just go buy a new one for $20? Aside from people who train to do so, even your above-average owner can not maintain or repair a modern car drivetrain. Or an IC which has, thorough the laws of physics, formed whiskers that have caused it to short out. Most people couldn't even replace such an IC, even if given all the fairly specialized tools. Nor could they realistically learn enough about programming to realistically find and repair defects in a 45 million LOC codebase. Hell, as a (as called by peers in the past) above-average programmer, I couldn't grok 45M lines of code in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe. Just opening the source is not enough. And just as car maintenance costs money (sometimes more than the car cost originally), if you want software patches past a reasonable span of time, those are going to cost money.

_ph_ 9y ago

Yes, if you buy a toaster, you can easily replace it. The problem with XP is, that it is a component of larger systems, sometimes not even user-visible. Just take ATMs or some hospital equipment. We can either patch them, or force them to be decommissioned, but I fear, without some regulations, everyone keeps just hoping for the best.

based2 9y ago
Even, if we have SambaOrg, WineHQ, ReactOS and LibreOffice.

fulafel 9y ago

In many (most?) countries product failures resulting from design defects are covered by consumer protection laws without time limit.

corney91 9y ago

>If I buy a toaster it comes with a one year warranty, maybe. A nice car might come with a five year or two hundred thousand mile limited warranty. The analogy falls down when you consider it's possible to fix your own toaster or car, or take it to some other engineer to do it. Cars last longer than 13 years due to servicing at garages and things like that. I agree that the implementation at the NHS is clearly awful, but it's crazy that staying on top of security means you're essentially forced to pay Microsoft more for a newer version of Windows (as well as retraining due to changes, retesting all your software). It's a mess of a situation and I don't know the solution, but continuing your analogy Microsoft should share the Windows source when they no longer support it so that third-parties can. I know that's never going to happen btw, just that's what's reasonable by your analogy.

Joeri 9y ago
They wouldn't need to share the source with everyone, just with authorized software repair companies. It would be a win-win, microsoft can cut back on support duration, they can collect a rent from the repair companies, there would be a new business sector, and customers could stay on older windows versions until a time of their choosing. Like with cars the older the version you are on the more expensive the upkeep, so it would be cheaper to move to a new windows version regularly, meaning microsoft wouldn't lose much in the way of windows license revenue.
- corney91 9y ago
  Good point, I intentionally left the phrase "open-source" out of my comment for that reason but didn't think it all the way through. There's clearly a need for this sort of support so it makes senses. Either that, or Windows should stop being overhauled every few years, making upgrades too costly to implement, and just focus on security and bug fixes. That's obviously not going to happen though.

agumonkey 9y ago

Maybe the old notion of business (for material artefact) is obsolete. As an open source friendly computer guy the notion of warranty is moot. Society self organized around delegation and ignorance, thus needs for warranty. Maybe it's time to redistribute knowledge and means so people can help themselves.

kuschku 9y ago

Okay, then an alternative suggestion. If a company wants to stop supporting software, they have to publish the entire source, documentation, and guides for how to work in it. So that others can then fix it. I can fix a toaster. I can’t fix a smart toaster with DRM.

eveningcoffee 9y ago

I think you are getting it very wrong. What guarantee used to mean is that if product has manufacturing defects then these will appear within limited period of time. Having a 5 year guarantee for a car does not mean that it will fall apart after this period of time. It means that defects that occur after this period of time are due to wear and not manufacturing defects. The main difference between a software product and say a car is that it appears that manufacturing defects of the software would take much longer to appear than 2 or 5 years. Sometimes it may take even 10-20 years for a defect to appear. The main issue with Microsoft software is that the problem, when it becomes apparent, can not be fixed by the owner as it could be with any other product. This is caused by the closed nature of the Microsoft software. Another thing you get wrong is that you call XP a $80 product. It is not. It is a $80 x number of owners product.

falcolas 9y ago
> can not be fixed by the owner as it could be with any other product I think this is nice in theory, but impractical with our current level of technology. If your toaster broke, would you be able to fix it? How many owners have the analog circuit knowledge to fix even a toaster from the pre-IC world? Would you be willing to invest the tens of hours and dollars required to fix it? Or would you just go buy a new one for $20? Aside from people who train to do so, even your above-average owner can not maintain or repair a modern car drivetrain. Or an IC which has, thorough the laws of physics, formed whiskers that have caused it to short out. Most people couldn't even replace such an IC, even if given all the fairly specialized tools. Nor could they realistically learn enough about programming to realistically find and repair defects in a 45 million LOC codebase. Hell, as a (as called by peers in the past) above-average programmer, I couldn't grok 45M lines of code in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe. Just opening the source is not enough. And just as car maintenance costs money (sometimes more than the car cost originally), if you want software patches past a reasonable span of time, those are going to cost money.