From: jgd@cix.co.uk   
      
   In article <10mst4a$5o8o$1@dont-email.me>, seaohveh@hoffmanlabs.invalid   
   (Stephen Hoffman) wrote:   
      
   > The concept that computers and apps are fixed and unchanging over   
   > time is becoming increasingly rare yes, outside of SCADA and   
   > process control and factory floor environments, and enterprise   
   > environments, and such; long-term deployments.   
   >   
   > And even within those LTS-aligned environments, changes such as   
   > encryption and authentication and related hardening are becoming   
   > required, and which then causes other changes within the apps and   
   > hardware configurations.   
      
   The rule I work to is that if a system is always air-gapped and cannot   
   communicate with any other computer, even via exchangeable media (floppy   
   drives, USB sticks, etc), then it can be frozen. Anything else needs   
   security updates, and if there's software in the stack that does not get   
   security updates, it has to go.   
      
   > For vendors, maintaining ABIs and to a lesser extent APIs becomes   
   > increasingly costly, difficult, and problematic, and less useful   
   > given the apps themselves are increasingly being continuously   
   > rebuilt.   
      
   It's not actually that hard, but the understanding of how to do it right   
   seems to be very rare.   
      
   > DEC sought to provide a degree of ABI and API stability, which _   
   > *looks around* _ clearly wasn't a particularly viable business   
   > model. Not for funding competitive product development work, and   
   > not for maintaining and growing the customer base.   
      
   OTOH, the Linux kernel maintains its ABIs and API very thoroughly, with   
   the objective that changes within the kernel can't break applications.   
      
   > LTS is a hard problem, and that in various dimensions.   
      
   Notably, it involves risks that can't be predicted.   
      
   John   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)