[Interest] [Development] Windows 7 support will be dropped in Qt 6

Roland Hughes roland at logikalsolutions.com
Sat Jun 13 17:46:10 CEST 2020


On 6/13/20 5:00 AM, Filip Piechocki wrote:
> Hi,
> for me not updating a system, software etc for many years is just equal to
> building a technical debt. Any serious company should be aware that this
> will finally kick them in their butt, should have measure the potential
> cost and decide where is the point where they should switch. If a company
> decides to not care about this then someone else will decide for them for
> example by dropping support for their OS/hardware/whatever.
> Backwards compatibility is nice but the world (especially IT world) is
> moving forward and lagging behind is a potential risk and cost.

Honestly, I can see how one would think that; but the truth is it almost 
never does.

I worked on the trading floor system for the Chicago Stock Exchange 
multiple times. This "temporary" system started out on PDP 11 hardware 
running either RSTS or RSX OS (I forget which, could have even been 
RT-11). That was the 1970s. In the 1980s it moved to VAX hardware and 
OpenVMS quite easily actually because the BASIC compiler strove to be 
backward compatible. In the 1990s it moved to the Alpha. When the 
Itanium processor came out it moved to that. Do you know when they 
finally retired this "temporary" system? When they got rid of the 
trading floor just a few years ago.

With a proper business model, technical debt never has to be paid.

That FDA regulated company in California running a 1970s era PDP will 
run it until the business becomes unprofitable (or not profitable 
enough) then they will shut the line down. If there ever comes a time 
when they can no longer scrounge up parts or physically cannot find 
_anyone_ willing to train on how to run the thing, then and only then, 
they will set up a new line with current tech in some other location, 
usually off-shore. They probably already have such a line. This one will 
simply be scrapped once it can no longer function.

This is the reality of industry.

You can always find someone willing to be trained for the proper amount 
of money and that proper amount of money is always less than starting 
over. You only "upgrade" when you physically can't make it work anymore 
or a federal regulation forces you.


-- 
Roland Hughes, President
Logikal Solutions
(630)-205-1593

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