Hacker News Reader

Comment by wongarsu | Hacker News Reader

This wasn't a big problem with software just 20 years ago. Sure, the software you used could be bought by someone else, but that just meant you might choose not to get the next version. Software didn't automatically update, and licenses were eternal and mostly tied to physical tokens, like a disk or a fancy sticker. At some point your beloved software might become obsolete, but that was because it was outpaced in improvements by other better software, not because yours got any worse.

View on HN

And, to be honest, it doesn't even really have to be a problem now. I use almost entirely FSF or Open Source software. Of the proprietary software I use, it's still software that I have an installable copy of and I'll be able to keep using it for as long as I have a machine that can run it.

I don't do automatic updates and actively prevent that from happening. Automatic updates are a plague that means you can't rely on the software anymore, if for no other reason than an update may (and likely will, eventually) remove or otherwise bork the very aspect that made it valuable to you.

But I'm a weirdo and take care to ensure that I actually own and control the software I use. I see people getting burned because they're at the mercy of a company all too often.

Using open source isn't enough any more, now that everything's tightly coupled and expects the latest version. Can't run a new version of anything without "upgrading" your window manager, session manager, dbus, udev, kernel, whoops the new kernel broke compatibility with the drivers for your hardware? Too bad.

I've switched to FreeBSD and things mostly stay working, but I've already seen steps in the direction that Linux has gone, so I fear it's just a matter of time.

Flatpaks reduce the system dependencies, you may still get burned by kernel changes but hey. Inb4 someone also mentions nix.

In theory yes, but they only help with needing specific solibs which is actually a minority of the problems you see nowadays IME. In terms of things like having the wrong dbus sessions/interfaces available in your environment, flatpak/snap/etc. seem if anything to be making things worse.

It has happened in open source, too: OpenOffice was once well-respected, but 10 years ago we needed to switch to LibreOffice. (and I bet still not everyone has noticed)

You could still be using the old version of OpenOffice though.

You could still use the browser extension provided by Avast, no difference here.

No, there is a huge difference. The Avast extension can update without warning adding whatever kind of tracking or leaks they want. The old OOo version won't do that.

And even earlier than that you would have been using Sun StarOffice :)

A lot of software is dependant on servers so it somewhat understandable (at least for the usecases where the server is essential)

Not really. In the past we defined protocols so that clients and servers don't need to be updated together.

Plus, a lot of these server dependencies are added to create that dependency and the software would be better off without them anyway.

Strongly disagree. Companies like Computer Associates were exploiting vendor lock-in on products like databases via their M&A strategy for decades.

Yeah this guy has rose coloured glasses.

Remember when Java and MySQL weren't owned by Oracle?

I do.

How about not talking past each other and declaring victory? The majority of software, prior to the internet, were necessarily optional. There were corporate lock-ins. These are not the software most people purchased/owned.

2000-2005, the biggest automatic updates that consumers had to deal with were Windows (Office, OS, etc) updates and games. Valve's Steam, which had come into prevalence (notably Counterstrike:Source), World of Warcraft, etc.

By 2008 (Google Chrome), automatic updates were common. I would say the ship had sailed by 2005. Yes, this is 1 full generation ago.

Well, software has changed a lot. Almost every software platform that I can think of gets continuous updates.

Sometimes this is more annoying than helpful, and I only speak with a tiny bit of hyperbole here.

On several different SaaS softwares used at my employer I have found myself asking if they have entire teams of highly compensated UX professionals and graphics designers who justify their continued employment by changing the interface every 3 months by just enough to annoy me after I finally remap my brain to the latest locations of the tools and buttons.

But the barriers to releasing and distributing software were much higher, as you had to work out to get it to people, and incremental release were basically impossible. So software was controlled by a handful of big companies.

> So software was controlled by a handful of big companies.

Not really, no. The software space was much, much richer and you could get along extremely well without using much software from the big guys.

The industry had more smaller players compared to today and a better chance to sell. The barriers were higher but expectations lower. Plus you had a fragmentation of computers and high margins. Trade shows and flea markets, magazines, shareware and asking store owners directly were accessible ways.

Today we have the illusion of speaking globally but have been gatekept out by a handful of companies.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com