OS Obsolescence: a Rant

by Ctein

Consider yourself warned—I'm on a tear. I'm sick of software and hardware manufacturers forcing us into system upgrades and breaking our existing ones. I'm not talking about needing to upgrade single applications to newer versions. I'm talking out about the them breaking your whole machine. There are some very, very good practical and technical reasons for not upgrading an OS if you don't need to. Lots of professionals are a generation back in their OS's. I'm one of them.

My old PowerBook is running both OS9 and OS X 10.3.9 (the newest OS it can). Why did I bother even putting OSX on this pre-Y2K platform? Because I'm probably never going to be able to get rid of this computer, and there are some situations where I need OS X (like drivers for new peripherals). I've got "mission critical" applications that only run under OS 9, not diddly stuff but professional business applications. Up until a year ago, Apple built OS 9 backward compatibility into OS X. They killed it with the MacIntels. Which means even when I get my new Mac I'm going to be stuck supporting this one. Doesn't matter to Apple that 20% or so of Mac users are in my boat. They just said, "The heck with you all; your new computers are never, ever going to be able to run those apps."

Now Adobe announces Photoshop CS3 (hardly a major upgrade) and guess what? It'll only run under the latest Mac or Windows OS (that's 10.4 for you Mac addicts and XP for PCers). So my laptop won't support it and my PC desktop is stable at Win2K, thank you very much. I'm screwed again.

None of this was technically necessary. MacIntel OSX could support OS 9 apps. And the core code and functionality of OS 10.4 vs 10.3 and Windows 2K vs XP is similar enough that Photoshop compatibility for one generation back would be no big deal.

I understand how corporate profits drive this. Intentionally killing off acknowledgment of an older system, even if many people still use it, means that much less money spent to keep those customers up and running. Well, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. When I define my business and my pleasure by the enhanced profit margins of these companies, then I will care about them making an extra buck by inconveniencing me. Until that unlikely day, it's nothing but a posterior pain.

Posted by: CTEIN

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