[consulting] Staying Current

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

2009/3/29 Karen Stevenson <karen at elderweb.com>

> 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.
>

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").

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.

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.

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.

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.
-- 
Khalid M. Baheyeldin
2bits.com, Inc.
http://2bits.com
Drupal optimization, development, customization and consulting.
Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability. --  Edsger W.Dijkstra
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. --   Leonardo da Vinci
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