The "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mind set is only one part of the equation. Most organizations acknowledge that it's generally preferable to run up to dat

The "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mind set is only one part of the equation. Most organizations acknowledge that it's generally preferable to run up to date and modern software. But at the same time, updating or, even worse, replacing a piece of technology can be extremely complex, and also quite risky, so people naturally chose the path of least resistance and keep old pieces software (or hardware) running. And even Facebook or Google are likely not immune to that. For example, Google used to run RedHat 7.1 (release in 2001) for a very long time, only transitioning recently to a more modern Debian OS base. http://events17.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/ProdNG_0.pdf http://events17.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slide... This is of course with huge caveats as Google has the resources and the people to basically maintain their own distribution, and practically did so upgrading this RH 7.1 base with security and bug fix patches, and including newer components such as recent kernels. But overall, the base system Google used was quite old, almost to a scary extent to be honest. Also, the upgrade process detailed in the slides is really interesting and show how complex and involved it was for Google. For organizations less able to attract very good engineers this kind of upgrade would either be extremely painful (bugs, downtime, etc), or even nearly impossible.