2009/3/29 Karen Stevenson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:karen@elderweb.com">karen@elderweb.com</a>></span><br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
This is the way all software works. Software developed by organizations that pay their maintainers can keep support more older versions than software that is dependent on community support, but all of them have to cut off support for older versions at some point. <br>
</blockquote><div><br>Having done software development in large multinational companies, I can say that theoretically the above is true ("companies have money, and can pay developers, hence they can afford to support from older versions").<br>
<br>In reality it is different: companies will support older versions only if their customer base pays them (a lot) of extra cash for it. They don't like the extra head count needed for this, because the higher ups always remind them that they have too many emloyees. They have to justify that head count with a independent revenue stream.<br>
<br>In the absence of the above (a customer wanting to pay extra), companies just support one current released version, and perhaps the one prior to it, and that is about it.<br></div></div><br>Open source in general is either the same, or better in this regard. It is driven by the need of the collective community, and its level of resources, and how much they can keep old stuff alive if they want to.<br>
<br>Of course, as a developer, I agree that maintaining more than one version up to date, and synching patches for them is a total pain, and something no developer *likes* to do. Whether they *have* to, is another matter.<br>
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