I'm all for not bending over backwards to support a 10-year-old browser, but 2 years is a really tight support window.
> Turns out, you can’t. From what I could gather, the version of Chrome was tied to ChromeOS which couldn’t be updated because of the hardware. No new ChromeOS meant no new Chrome which meant stuck at version 76.
There might be a business rationale to bend to reality, but no obligation. In this case it appears to be a volunteering organization, so I guess they might not be as motivated to solve niche problems.
There are 2 issues
1 some hardware is locked, you can run what you want on it, it must be approved. In the TFA is is cearly shown that it was impossible to run a new browser version.
2 since is just software as you said, I assume the developers could install some software and have the JS transpiled to a more compatible version or popup a message if the user does not use latest Chrome or Safari and send them away.
Maybe search engine should check this websites in an older browser engine and remove SEO points, also try the website with JS off and if you get nothing, no text that you need JS also remove points.
My comment was about "is just software" so should the software guys do the transpilation step rather then forcing users to throw their devices? (since again "IS JUST SFOFTWARE)
What I am saying is if you put a webpage that targets everyone (not a limited subset like say our internal team that all run latest Apple shit) then since "is is just software" it is easier to transpile the code then ask the world to throw away their devices and buy new stuff.
I am sure you are not OK if all websites will use a new JS feature in the exact day it is released and the updates did not had time to propagate to all users, so the question is how many percent of an users should is small enough so a average webdev can stop using the transpiler and break stuff?
Especially in 'enterprisey' networks there are devices that /still/ require SSL, Java applets, Flash (urghh!), SSH v1 support, or features of (X)HTML, CSS, and Javascript that have been removed or modified. Most of that hardware would be expensive and disruptive to replace.
I still maintain a version of 32-bit Netscape Navigator for accessing some key infra-structure devices that continue to work perfectly and are on isolated private networks.
Some examples: Cabinet Distribution Units (CDUs - network-controlled power switches), network KVM (Keyboard-Video-Mouse over Ethernet), Ethernet switches
When I think Motorola I think enterprise, so, another data point.