5 ms·

Most of the time code does not fit into neat little boxes like that, in my professional experience thing are far more gray that just bugfixes and feature ticket

Most of the time code does not fit into neat little boxes like that, in my professional experience thing are far more gray that just bugfixes and feature tickets.

sangnoir 8y ago
In my professional experience, the correct solution is to give someone (or people) the authority to make the call between "security fix" and feature. Choosing to lump everything in the "feature" bucket is, as I said, cultural. On the technical side, release branches have been existed since forever - Microsoft has been doing this for decades instead of forcing upgrades to the latest windows/office version.
- jkrems 8y ago
  Yes, and the result is people using old software on those old OS versions which... well, have blatant security issues. Apple shipping minimal security fixes to old OS versions has ripple effects that are really unfortunate and expecting every small app developer to support 5 major versions of the OS feature matrix isn't practical.
  - evol262 8y ago
    Nobody is obligating app developers to support umpteen versions of iOS. There are 2 possibilities: 1. Users who want to stay on old versions without access to the newer app store stay. This happens all the time with people who have old iPads they want to hand off to their kids/grandparents/whatever. 2. Apple stops pretending that there are enough new features every year to merit a major version of iOS, and gates updates for newer packages to only users of the newest phone. They already have the capability to do this for iPads, iPhone X, and others.
  - jake_the_third 8y ago
    > Apple shipping minimal security fixes to old OS versions has ripple effects that are really unfortunate and expecting every small app developer to support 5 major versions of the OS feature matrix isn't practical. I think this is a case where Apple has to make a choice between their developers' convenience or their users' UX. I personally think developers should cater to multiple versions just like any other platform (targeting Android APIs, Windows releases, kernel versions). Apple developers aren't special snowflakes. They can handle what other developers have been doing for as long as programmable computers existed.
    - dwaite 8y ago
      They have made a decision for the User's UX - the user does not get a choice of installing 10.4.7, 11.3.2, or 12.0.1 - they just get the choice to install the latest OS their hardware supports.
      - jake_the_third 8y ago
        I wouldn't count degrading users' experience when using their previously-normal phones a decision for User UX.
evol262 8y ago
iOS is ultimately composed of a bunch of separate packages. Is there a good technical reason why a fix to their crypto library couldn't be backported? This is exactly what Red Hat does, and Debian stable, and it works.
- dwaite 8y ago
  It increases complexity at every level from the apple developer, to the third party developer, to the end user. The costs aren't even manageable without additional restrictions. Red Hat only back-ports packages because they are paid to do so per their support contracts. And even under RHEL, you may have to upgrade to the latest packages (for your OS version) to receive support. And anyway, if you don't trust your OS vendor to not try to screw you over (planned obsolescence) in major releases, why would you trust them for any update whatsoever? Lack of vendor trust is not something you solve through packaging.

Most of the time code does not fit into neat little boxes like that, in my professional experience thing are far more gray that just bugfixes and feature tickets.

sangnoir 8y ago

In my professional experience, the correct solution is to give someone (or people) the authority to make the call between "security fix" and feature. Choosing to lump everything in the "feature" bucket is, as I said, cultural. On the technical side, release branches have been existed since forever - Microsoft has been doing this for decades instead of forcing upgrades to the latest windows/office version.

jkrems 8y ago
Yes, and the result is people using old software on those old OS versions which... well, have blatant security issues. Apple shipping minimal security fixes to old OS versions has ripple effects that are really unfortunate and expecting every small app developer to support 5 major versions of the OS feature matrix isn't practical.
- evol262 8y ago
  Nobody is obligating app developers to support umpteen versions of iOS. There are 2 possibilities: 1. Users who want to stay on old versions without access to the newer app store stay. This happens all the time with people who have old iPads they want to hand off to their kids/grandparents/whatever. 2. Apple stops pretending that there are enough new features every year to merit a major version of iOS, and gates updates for newer packages to only users of the newest phone. They already have the capability to do this for iPads, iPhone X, and others.
- jake_the_third 8y ago
  > Apple shipping minimal security fixes to old OS versions has ripple effects that are really unfortunate and expecting every small app developer to support 5 major versions of the OS feature matrix isn't practical. I think this is a case where Apple has to make a choice between their developers' convenience or their users' UX. I personally think developers should cater to multiple versions just like any other platform (targeting Android APIs, Windows releases, kernel versions). Apple developers aren't special snowflakes. They can handle what other developers have been doing for as long as programmable computers existed.
  - dwaite 8y ago
    They have made a decision for the User's UX - the user does not get a choice of installing 10.4.7, 11.3.2, or 12.0.1 - they just get the choice to install the latest OS their hardware supports.
    - jake_the_third 8y ago
      I wouldn't count degrading users' experience when using their previously-normal phones a decision for User UX.

evol262 8y ago

iOS is ultimately composed of a bunch of separate packages. Is there a good technical reason why a fix to their crypto library couldn't be backported? This is exactly what Red Hat does, and Debian stable, and it works.

dwaite 8y ago
It increases complexity at every level from the apple developer, to the third party developer, to the end user. The costs aren't even manageable without additional restrictions. Red Hat only back-ports packages because they are paid to do so per their support contracts. And even under RHEL, you may have to upgrade to the latest packages (for your OS version) to receive support. And anyway, if you don't trust your OS vendor to not try to screw you over (planned obsolescence) in major releases, why would you trust them for any update whatsoever? Lack of vendor trust is not something you solve through packaging.