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Comment by jwr | Hacker News Reader

But that, unfortunately, is entirely unrealistic. When I discover critical bugs, I can't leave users out in the cold.

I believe that the whole concept of "software without support" is fundamentally flawed.

Agreed. But if a user agrees to be left "out in the cold", you should allow him to. Given that it is not very costly for you to prepare your software for on-prem, it maybe a win-win for all the parties involved.

> Given that it is not very costly for you to prepare your software for on-prem

I have been asserting exactly the opposite in this thread.

Assuming you are not providing any updates (not even security critical ones for argument's sake), you only need to package and add documentation for an on-prem installation. Why is it so costly?

> you only need to package and add documentation

None of which are insignificant.

In addition to that you must now support (and test for) a million configurations, rather than just one.

FUD. Among my products I have desktop software. Sure I got some pains upon initial release but it's been literally years since I really needed to test "for million configurations".

I also have experience developing and maintaining cloud solutions. Total amount of work that goes into large cloud apps and amount of things things that can brake or not work properly is fairly impressive. Definitely not any less then on premises

I think we as engineers owe our users bug fixes, because we messed up at some point. However new functionality or email/phone support? Well, this is what people are not entitled for.

Only for a limited time though, releasinga piece of software shouldn't be a lifetime commitment.

Well, this is what people are not entitled for.

But they will expect it.

And pay for upgrades

I sell nothing but on-prem software, and have never left my customers "out in the cold" or without support.

And what if your software is mature and you do not discover any critical bugs?

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