How Long Should Developers Support their Software?

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
From our front-page news:
When Apple's Mac OS X "Snow Leopard" came out last weekend, many ran to their local Apple reseller to pick up their $29 copy. Upgrading to a new OS is always a fun occasion, usually. You get the latest features of the OS, refinements and of course, security patches - not to mention that "fresh PC" feeling. But there is one rather sizable caveat when it comes to upgrading... compatibility and support.

Once Snow Leopard was released, Adobe issued a release that said the company wouldn't be officially supporting their CS3 (2007) software for use in the OS, and not surprisingly, many users were up in arms. After all, Adobe's software isn't exactly inexpensive, ranging from between $200 - $2500 depending on the product, and not everyone feels the need to upgrade with every new version. So it's easy to understand why people were upset.

It's important to note that the software functions just fine under Snow Leopard. It's just the official support for CS3 (and likely other Adobe products) that's not available. The debacle raises an interesting question, though. Just how long should developers continue to support their software, and can anyone really blame them for not supporting an OS that was released long after their product was?

Adobe software is expensive (but not for what it does), but this is an issue aside from money. Even if the software was $50 a pop, would there be such an uproar? With Windows 7 right around the corner, it looks like CS3 won't be supported there either, so it will be interesting to see if Windows users are as vocal as Mac users on the subject.

adobe_photoshop_mac_090209.jpg

"While older Adobe applications may install and run on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6), they were designed, tested, and released to the public several years before this new operating system became available," said Adobe. "You may therefore experience a variety of installation, stability, and reliability issues for which there is no resolution. Older versions of our creative software will not be updated to support Mac OS X Snow Leopard."


Source: Computerworld
 

2Tired2Tango

Tech Monkey
Ummmm... the answer to this should be fairly simple...

Software isn't about parts that may go out of manufacture or materials that may become unavailable. It is sourced 100% in house and fully under the control of it's developers. There's nothing there that won't last forever... sofware doesn't wear down, break or bio-degrade.

They wrote it... they support it.
 

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
They wrote it... they support it.

Just not on OS X 10.6. ;) Oh it should run just fine, but should something not work and they need to call up technical support they're likely going to run into trouble.

For example Supreme Commander Forged Alliance was released Nov 2007, it's not that old. It worked on Vista but it was particularly finicky to get set up and patched correctly in order to avoid program crashes and other oddities. In Windows 7 there are (admittedly a minority) of users such as myself that can't get the game to work at all. It just won't completely launch, and because Windows 7 came out this year THQ refuses to provide any sort of technical support.

With major OS releases coming every two and a half years it's something to be aware of whether one is using OS X, or Windows. It shouldn't be any surprise though.
 

MacMan

Partition Master
I agree with Kougar. With major OS updates dates getting shorter, the line of incompatibilities naturally grows longer with each release. If things changed radically every month or two it would be hard to take, but you have to accept some problems with each new upgrade. After reading Ars Technica's 23-page review of Snow Leopard, its safe to say that Snow Leopard is far, far from being a mere service pack, and I'm amazed at how little problems people are having with it compared with previous version updates!

its been five years since Apple built Power PC Mac's, so it's laughable that people are still bitching that Snow Leopard is not available for the Power PC..... whatever?
 
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