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It's telling that there are a number of commercially available Python libraries targeting enterprise customers for which the Python 3 version is free, but there
by haram_masala 6y ago
It's telling that there are a number of commercially available Python libraries targeting enterprise customers for which the Python 3 version is free, but there's a hefty license fee for the Python 2 version. Maybe that's an appropriate tax on sluggish software/IT departments.
- asaddhamani 6y agoDon't fix what ain't broke? If there's a legacy application using Python 2 and its working just fine, why upgrade?
- knicknic 6y agoPotential security vulnerabilities? If I have a library and it works in 2 & 3. But I stopped working on keeping it 2 compliant because 2 is no longer supported. Than I will never bring a single fix to 2, even security fixes. Due to code divergence it may not be even easy for me to understand if the issue reproduces in 2.
- ianhanschen 6y agoThat creates a good business model for someone to come along and charge a premium to fix security bugs in old code. I think it’s more likely something like that will happen, than everyone moving their code to work on 3.x.
- Skgqie1 6y agoAlthough quite different, this made me think of how COBOL is largely in maintenance at many places, but pays premium rates for developers.
- nerdponx 6y agoThere have been several threads on COBOL here on this forum, and the anecdotal consensus is that COBOL developers don't actually get paid much more than developers in any other language.
- willis936 6y agoIt sounds like the tax is from choosing to use python at all. Either pay to keep legacy codebases or pay to update. Given a choice between two evils, I choose another language.
- ianhanschen 6y agoYou assume they will move forward, when they most likely won’t. It’s not a tax, it’s a product targeted at a guaranteed line of revenue. If 3.x were ever deprecated, they would start charging for that version. There probably aren’t enough users for their 3.x version yet, so it’s free to try and gain adoption.
- mikekhusid 6y agoDo you have any examples of this? Not doubting it, just curious.
- imhoguy 6y agoThat is quite interesting OSS funding method - charge for legacy patches and support which no-one else would provide. Although it is likely boring venture, but that is the price.
- hjek 6y ago> charge for legacy patches Oracle are doing that with Java too.
- Too 6y agoSimilar to how we dealt with IE6 back in the days. By default not supported, any time spent on workarounds for IE6 are billed double hourly rate, and mind you these often require a lot of time. Quickly made a lot of our clients untick the IE6 requirement from the wishlist.