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Comment by awjr | Hacker News Reader

I really don't see this as screwing over Mac users. The guy has a v4 (released Apr 2014). The new v5 (released Jun 2017) has been around for some months. This really is not 'screwing' over Mac users. You've made a choice to upgrade to High Sierra which breaks numerous applications. You are using a 3 year old piece of software (although 4.7 came out Dec 2016).

Also to suggest that High Sierra is a simple maintenance update also dismisses the large number of apps that no longer work with Mac OS. This is a big big change and you need to decide if you should consider updating given your reliance on Bria 4.

I really do think the OP is blaming the wrong people here. Apple has a lot to answer for.

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Yeah, I didn't really follow the "maintenance update" argument, either.

It didn't introduce many new features to the OS itself, but it changed quite a bit.

It doesn't matter when the software was released. If the generally accepted lifetime of this software product was say 3 years then every customer is (dare I say) entitled to software that continues to function for at least 3 years after they bought it.

If the company decided that developing the old version isn't worth it then giving them a free upgrade path seems acceptable but selling software that is obsolete a few months after someone buys it reflects poorly on our whole industry.

Obsolete? v4 still works on the operating system that was current when it was first released, as well as the next three operating systems. It works on the operating system that was Apple's latest and greatest one week ago, the operating system that's still installed on the majority of Mac, and will still be supported by Apple for years to come.[0]

My company insists that I shouldn't update to High Sierra because doing so breaks several well-known apps, including Microsoft Office (albeit v2011, I think?). So I haven't updated, and... everything is fine.

A demand for a free upgrade path suggests to me that all software ought to be sold as lifetime licenses with unlimited upgrades. I think that extreme would undermine our whole industry far more than a company insisting that only their latest product is supported on the latest operating system.

[0]Here's Apple release updates for Sierra, El Capitan, and Yosemite very recently: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222

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