I expect this would be a big deal for the appliance manufacturers (think Juniper, NetApp, Isilon) that need to support long life cycles . I'd also expect those

I expect this would be a big deal for the appliance manufacturers (think Juniper, NetApp, Isilon) that need to support long life cycles . I'd also expect those type of companies to pony up for long term support (and they do, at least internally, with staff developers and trees) But in an ops context, why not simply install compat<version> packages? Or worst case, run the obsolete apps in a <version> jail? With containers, I think we're rapidly approaching a point where the software that touches the hardware can evolve faster than the libraries/support around applications, and this quite frankly is awesome!