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I'd prefer if Apple took care of security fixes instead of some third party. And they could ship newer versions if keeping the old ones secure is harder.

• olliej 7y ago
  The problem is that updating to a new version isn’t possible if it breaks existing software - what happens is that the end user experience is “I installed these updates and Apple broke my program” so don't update in future, and tell others not to as well. The only way to stop the OS from including out of date software and libraries is to not ship them if they don’t have stable abi. That’s what Apple is doing: it can’t reasonably ship them and keep them up to date, so it is going to stop.
  • jdsully 7y ago
    Doesn’t removing them have the same issue? “My software dependent on this ancient python no longer works - because there’s no python anymore”
    • olliej 7y ago
      Yes, the difference is that now Apple is shipping a new version that will have the same problem in a years time, so instead of one compatibility event there’s a new one. The app developer also now has a problem - their binary only works on one OS revision so they have to start shipping the same code, just compiled separately. The only safe solution is to ship with their own embedded version. Which is also the correct solution to the interpreters not being part of the platform.