win95/98/ME and printers. An ethics issue comparable to DRM servers or not?

[Leo Mauler]

--- On Sun, 7/27/08, Christofer C. Bell <christofer.c.bell at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 27, 2008 at 6:08 PM, Oren Beck
> <orenbeck at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > There seems to me an ethics issue developing . One
> > possibly directed at establishing the "pattern of 
> > crime" RE:EOL software/hardware support.
> 
> While I'm not sure what you're saying from your
> post (which doesn't make much sense to me), you 
> seem to be speculating that dropping support for 
> EOL software is equivalent to locking up digital 
> media in DRM.
> 
> These are apples over here, and those are oranges 
> over there.  ;-)

I'm more inclined to think that there are Red Delicious over here, and Granny Smith over there.  If DRM locks you into using a particular device to use your purchased media, then there's not a whole lot of difference between that and closed-source software, since lack of access to the source code is remarkably similar to "lack of access to the decoding algorithm".
 
> Is it your contention that vendors should support 
> a given software release forever?  If so, what is 
> your plan to ensure that free software developers
> start supporting every past release of their 
> software?  If you're not holding OSS developers 
> to that standard, why are you holding commercial
> developers to it?

Over here we have the real apples and oranges, sadly you're the one making that particular kind of comparison.  OSS means support is *nice* but not necessary, because anyone can step in and support the software, or maintain and improve it themselves.  Closed-source means support is *necessary* or the software eventually becomes little more than garbage bits on a hard drive.