Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
Sigh...
There are three levels of digital environments
1. Open - like Linux
2. Proprietary - like Windoze and Mac OS (I run mostly Windoze on my machines)
3. Closed - Xbox, iphone, iPad, ect...
I want to run something. Program, file (e-book, music, video), whatever. I can buy it to run on any one of the three environments - today. Will I be able to run it 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now?
(Please note - the software, not the current hardware you run it on. With luck, you can run the same files for many generations of hardware.)
1. Almost certainly. There may need to be a tweak in the environment, but the source is there to be tweaked (for a fee if necessary).
2. Maybe, maybe not. For pure files, such as e-books and music, probably. If not, they would be convertible to a more modern file type, and conversion programs would be readily available. Programs are more dicey, but there is a world of emulators out there to run old software on, at least in the Windoze world. I've got a Windoze emulator that will run any (non DRM'ed) software back to Windoze 1.0. I don't know if there are any equally capable emulators for Mac back to the 128K monochrome days. And there are Apple II, Atari, Commodore, and CP-M emulators as well.
3. Fat chance. When the company decided to stop supporting your machines, soon your investment in software will be scrap. You can't just go buy another company's machine to run it on. Do you think that apple will be supporting today's iPhone apps 20 years from now? Does Apple support Motorola 680x0 Mac apps today?
A good piece of software should outlast you. Treating it as a throwaway, to me, is the same as lighting a fire with $20 bills.
But what do I know? I've just played with these little beasties since 1977....
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Really good points and quality reply however thats all very personal, to me software IS throwaway there is no software that I had even 3 years ago that I would even want to be able to use now, and 3 years from now I'll have the next new thing and wont care that a $5 app doesnt run on it because there will be something better.
btw I dont think your wrong just a different opinion and way of looking at it between us.
I feel the same about cars
just not software.