Programming Soviet
Cool! Dane Carlson maintains an RSS feed of Eric Raymond’s blog.
Arnold Kling at Tech Central Station apparently reads Eric’s blog, since he responded to one of the posts with an article titled “The Programming Soviet“. It’s surprising to see a tech journalist writing something so common-sense. Less surprising are the comments by the religious zealots who were offended. I suspect that Eric is far less offended than these people, considering that one of Raymond’s primary contributions to OSS was to temper some of the religious zealotry coming out of RMS camp.I’m not sayingthat Raymond isn’t partisan (he is), and I’m not saying that he hasn’t contributed to polarization in the industry (he has). But he doesn’t get defensive when you disagree with him; something that the trolls responding to Kling would do well to emulate.
Anyway, the “The Programming Soviet” talks about one issue that I feel deserves some additional perspective — the issue of “version fatigue”. It is not uncommon to hear an OSS advocate harping on about the “forced treadmill of upgrades”. But this makes absolutely no sense to me. I remember using WizardWord on DOS nearly 15 years ago. It worked great for writing papers, and I could fit the entire word processor, spell checker, and a few papers on a single 360k floppy disk.
The word processor works today just as well as it did 15 years ago. I don’t use it anymore, but I could if I wanted to. I would have to run it from a 3.5″ floppy, since I don’t have any 360k drives around anymore, but I don’t blame that on anyone. I got rid of my 360k drives because they took up too much space, not because the hardware vendors trapped me in a conspiracy to force me to upgrade. I use Microsoft Word today because I prefer its functionality, not because someone coerced me to stop using WizardWord. If I ever decide that the software I am using is too bloated or too expensive (and it’s unlikely I would complain about the price, since I’ve already paid for it), I can always switch back to WizardWord. Software functionality doesn’t deteriorate with time; the choice will probably be available to me for the rest of my natural life.
So when someone complains that they are being forced to upgrade, I wonder what they are talking about. There are only a few things I can think of that would make someone say that:
- They think that thesoftware is going to wear out andquit working, so they need to replace it. What a crazy idea!
- They bought a new machine and operating system, and they are worried that their oldsoftware will no longer be compatible with the new hardware and OS. Microsoft and Intel together have an untouchable record of success at making new hardware and software capable of running old software. But it is of course possible that backwards-compatibility bugs occur.Butthere is a huge difference between saying “I cannot use these old programs on this new machine” and “I cannot use these old programs at all“.
- Maybe they are afraid that their operating system will wear out and need replacing, so they will not even be able to continue running their old program on the old operating system. Again, since software functionality does not deteriorate with time, the only way that this could happen is if the software vendor deliberately added an “expiration date” to the operating system. That is a pretty strange idea.
- Maybe they are afraid that the rest of the world will move on, and will no longer be able to read their files. But every word processor I know can still read text, and there are plenty of import/export filters that exist. If inventing a new file format is the same as “forcing” someone to upgrade, I guess the W3C are the biggest bandits of all. But even if you passed a law, I doubt you could get anyone to implement software that would be automatically compatible with any new file format that was ever invented in the future. And it would be even crazier to try to pass a law that says people are not allowed to invent new file formats. Might as well legislate that people grow wings.
- Maybe they are worried that their competitors will get newer software and have a competitive edge. Maybe they are worried that their neighbors will have “cooler” software than them.
Today I picked upthe upgraded Sony(RM-VL 1000) remote control. I had to do a lot of work to get the thing programmed, and it still has some kinks that I’ll have to work out over time. And I had to do all of that work by pushing stupid little buttons on the stick, rather than by liesurely browsing the Internet. I have to learn the features of a new remote control at least once per year, and I’ll probably be on the treadmill again by Christmas, when I pick up the next big “home entertainment”thing from Microsoft. Even with a universal remote, I’m going to have to reprogram for whichever new devices I get.
But I’m not silly enough to blame the version fatigue on someone other than myself. I know the solution that is guaranteed to end my version fatigue — just stop buying new things! Not only would it end the version fatigue, it would save me some money! And for people who want to spend more money to combat their fatigue, thereare always the functionals.