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> Because software does not decay on its own (despite the misleading term "bitrot" being popular in tech circles). in theory yes, in practice no. I work on a p
by leetcrew 6y ago
> Because software does not decay on its own (despite the misleading term "bitrot" being popular in tech circles).
in theory yes, in practice no. I work on a product that targets windows and macos. on windows yeah, a version of our software from 2015 probably works as well as it did the day it was released. apple deprecates stuff in their API every year that we have to go back and update. they also break a lot of stuff that isn't formally deprecated and we have to find workarounds for that to. "our software will work forever as long as you never update your OS" is not acceptable to most customers.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoSure, but until quite recently, OSes were not updated at such breakneck pace. At this point we're hitting what can be seen as industry-wide, self-justifying scam: software needs subscriptions because it's being continuously updated; it's being continuously updated in big part because every other software is being continuously updated. Still, as a Linux and Windows user, I've absolutely grown to expect my desktop software to work 10 years or more without updates. After that, I can always spin up a VM with an older Windows version.