Yeah. Here's a GCC developer experimenting with a 31-year old GCC version on a modern system (the first one with x86 support): >It is amazing how well things w

Yeah. Here's a GCC developer experimenting with a 31-year old GCC version on a modern system (the first one with x86 support): >It is amazing how well things work – the modern assembler, linker, and debugger handles the code generated by GCC 1.27 without any problems. https://kristerw.blogspot.com/2019/01/building-gcc-127.html https://kristerw.blogspot.com/2019/01/building-gcc-127.html And the write-up he based his experiments upon: https://miyuki.github.io/2017/10/04/gcc-archaeology-1.html https://miyuki.github.io/2017/10/04/gcc-archaeology-1.html I'd say this kind of source-based backwards compatibility is superior to what's happening in Windows world -- not only it encourages you to keep the source code open, but you also don't have to keep as many hacks in the kernel/system libraries.