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Comment by bunderbunder | Hacker News Reader

Baltimore Police use a case management system based on Lotus Notes, which isn't particularly well-supported or maintained anymore. They just agreed to a 2-year, $176,800 deal to get support from a consulting firm.

This is a price that we are being asked to be upset about. No, don't take the time to estimate what it would ultimately cost to replace it. Just see $LARGE_NUMBER and be upset.

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which isn't particularly well-supported or maintained anymore

What does this mean? Notes appears to have fairly regular updates every 3-6 months.

I think reading between the lines of the article that they aren't paying IBM for software support.

They don't need to, they're paying a third-party for support. I wouldn't be surprised if the contractor has an IBM support account.

IBM really, really does not want anything to do with further developing or supporting Lotus software products. I believe that they gave that whole business over to HCL not long ago.

Rumor has it they've largely stopped using it internally, too.

OK, HCL, but by that token Thinkpads and Deskstars are still being made.

Only for the most current major version. They're almost certainly not running that.

I got the impression that the police department's system might be suffering from some bit rot.

That could easily be an interpolation on my part, though. I tend to just assume that all critical infrastructure built on Notes is poorly-maintained in the same way that I tend to just assume that all critical infrastructure built on Microsoft Access or Excel is poorly maintained. (I'm sure there's some well-tended stuff out there, it's just being kept hidden from me for some reason.)

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