On Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:19:51 +1200, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: > In message <gt3a7k$8d...@panix3.panix.com>, Aahz wrote: > >> In article <gt0f2d$t5...@lust.ihug.co.nz>, Lawrence D'Oliveiro >> <l...@geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote: >>> >>>It's only in the proprietary-software world that we need to worry about >>>backward compatibility with old, obsolete software that the vendors >>>cannot or will not fix. In the Free Software world, we fix the software >>>to bring it up to date. >> >> Are you volunteering to maintain trn3.6? > > Either there are enough people using it to care about it, in which case > somebody in the community will fix it, it or there are not, in which > case it's not worth bothering with.
That's EXACTLY the same as the proprietary software world. Either there are enough people using it to care about it, in which case the vendor will fix it, it or there are not, in which case it's not worth bothering with. Or, to put it another way... if you are one of those people who *need* to worry about backward compatibility with old, obsolete software, for whatever reason you have, then neither the proprietary or free software worlds are particularly good to you. The advantage to open source software in this case is that if you can maintain a backwards compatible fork, then you are permitted to do so. If you can't do it yourself (and that includes paying somebody to do it for you), then you're just as much out of luck as somebody who wants Microsoft to continue supporting Windows 3.1. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
