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Comment by wolfgke | Hacker News Reader

> Humans are producing so much content right now in the form of software, art, movies, writing. Does it really matter if we leave some behind? Do we need to preserve every piece of information we generate?

Everybody should be able to decide for themself what they consider as important and what should be preserved. So I strongly oppose when the benevolent/malevolent dictator decides that you have to leave this piece behind.

> I have software on the App Store that I cherish that unfortunately will never be updated past 32 bit (too much work). But I don't care, nor do I feel the need to preserve it.

But others perhaps care. So I strongly encourage you to open-source it if you don't care about it anymore.

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> So I strongly oppose when the benevolent/malevolent dictator decides that you have to leave this piece behind.

There is no one dictating that. The source code is still in the hands of developers, and your advice to me was to "open source it." All developers of 32 bit apps have that option, and they also have the option to maintain their source going forward.

Apple's decision to shed technical debt shouldn't be seen as them eschewing some moral responsibility to support old software.

> But others perhaps care. So I strongly encourage you to open-source it if you don't care about it anymore.

I would consider it if I still had the source. But you should realise that saying "open source it" trivialises the amount of effort and emotion required to do so. Sharing your work with the world (especially if you are embarrassed by old code you have written) is not something that everyone finds easy to do. I would feel obligated to update the code, write build instructions and a readme file at the very least.

That would take a good few days of my time to make the code "presentable" before I would be willing to share it. I don't have the mental or emotional energy to devote to that task.

> > So I strongly oppose when the benevolent/malevolent dictator decides that you have to leave this piece behind.

> There is no one dictating that.

Apple is.

> dictator decides that you have to leave this piece behind

They aren't dictating that you have to leave this piece behind.

They are dictating that you have 9 months to either port your code to 64 bit, leave it behind, open source it. Or whatever else you want to do.

They are dictating that the end user leave this piece behind. The developer could be dead or out of business.

Granted, they have been doing this for a long time -- you can't easily install older versions of software, for example.

You can very easily install older versions of software. If you make a local iTunes backup, you can keep the apps and reinstall them locally. If you have an older device that doesn't support the newest version of the app, you will be prompted that there is an older version available that us compatible and be allowed to download it.

The former option works on all iOS devices ever made, the latter works at least as far back as iOS 5 devices.

The former stopped working in iOS 9.

You can't restore local copies of apps that you backed up using iTunes in iOS 9? But you can download older copies of apps on a first gen iPad? That's weird if that's what you are saying. I was able to download older apps on my 1st gen iPad about a month ago.

Edit:

Are you sure it stopped working? You can't download an older version of an app on a non supported OS unless you either previously downloaded a version before on a compatible device or used iTunes and bought the app on a computer.

Edit 2:

Apparently you still can download the app to your computer directly using iTunes but you can't back it up to your device.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.macworld.com/article/3125509/...

No they shouldn't. Those people should either update their software or force their users to stay on legacy devices. It should not be Apple's responsibility to not move forward and continue to complicate their environment for the benefit of the few.

> So I strongly oppose when the benevolent/malevolent dictator decides that you have to leave this piece behind.

You don't have to leave it, you just cannot sell it on the App Store or run it in modern devices. By all means, open source the code, publish it, archive it... do whatever you want with it.its not the end of the world and its a sensible decision.

> But others perhaps care. So I strongly encourage you to open-source it if you don't care about it anymore.

This is false thinking in my mind. Others may care, but that does not mean they have the right to guilt someone into releasing the source for _their creation_.

On a grander scale - nothing lasts forever. Not even stars. So, we don't need to preserve everything - this is very egoic mind to me. It is ok to let things die and be forgotten. Software, art, ideas, songs, poems included.

If the creator of these things decides to not release it to the world, that is _their_ prerogative.

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