For Windows

[Jerry]

On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 15:28:02 -0700
Doug Barton <dougb at dougbarton.us> articulated:

[snip]

This entire thread breaks down to a few simple principals of which the
most prominent one is if you are going to become a slave to the past.
While one's method may be more circuitous than another's is irrelevant.
The final goal is to produce a high quality product.

Microsoft realized that they could not produce a more functional
version of IE, aka IE9, without abandoning older versions of its OS.
They could have went to great lengths to make older and EOL'd versions
functional with IE9, but that would have been extremely costly and
wasted valuable resources. They simply bit the bullet and moved on.
There are several URLs including on Microsoft's own TechNet that you can
search for verification.

Take for example a user who happens to have a large collection of Disco
cloths hanging around his/her home. Should they keep them in some vain
hope that Disco will return or simply dispose of them and move on to a
newer wardrobe?

The point being that at some point you have to move on. Outlook Express
is dead. It has been officially abandoned by its creator. Yes, there are
still remnants of it in circulation; however, they will all die a
natural death soon enough. Heck, there are still users of FreeBSD 4.x
lurking around. Would you have the creators of every piece of software
out there continuing to waste time and resources on making their
software backward compatible? Do you fully realize what a nightmare
that would become? It is bad enough when a library version is bumped
and I have to rebuild 800+ applications. To continually support this
software is to waste time and resources. Many of the complaints from
FOSS users is that Microsoft's products are bloated. To continue to
support architectures that are no longer viable is to bring the same
criticism upon us.

Perhaps a possible solution would be to freeze "GNUPG" at its present
state of development. Now, start the creation of a new branch that
supports only modern, fully RFC approved standards. It might also offer
the developers a change to clean up some code, etc. Yes, it would take
time, but time well spent I believe. In this way, everybody would be
happy. Those wishing to use the older version would be free to do so;
while those wanting a more streamlined version would have that
opportunity also. It looks like a win-win situation to me.

-- 
Jerry ✌
GNUPG.user at seibercom.net
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