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abandonware empires
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this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Its incredibly wasteful, but there is another perspective.
When that microscope was purchased, it formed part of someone's budget throughout its service life. Support would have been guaranteed for that service life, but that life has now expired.
The company isn't obligated to assist buyers beyond that service life, and doing so would eat into current and future profits.
There is not a single commenter (nor downvoter) in this thread who would open the source for that microscope if they owned that microscope company.
I would. Not only would I do so voluntarily, but I also support STRONG consumer protection laws that would force any product or software or copyright or patent into public domain the instant it’s been unavailable for sale for 3 or more years or has gone without update for 5 years.
Our public domain and consumer protections are pathetic, and should be vigorously bolstered and defended.
I don't think you've really thought this through.
If you force a company to continue support they will just give it a stupid price tag. "Sure we will continue to support this $250k microscope, if you would like us to write a windows 11 client for you that will cost $1m."
That sort of thing already happens in the enterprise world. If it gets maintained because a customer wants to pay for that entirely, it happens.
But if they abandon it, even unintentionally, then it needs to become public domain.
I think you missed my point.
I'm saying that you can't legislate that abandoned software must become public domain. If you asked a company whether it was abandoned they would just say yes it's still supported, with a completely impractical price tag for support.