

Should software come with an expiry date? - steeleduncan
http://slidetocode.com/2012/11/10/best-before/

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taeric
This is borderline nonsensical, isn't it? Even the author points out that they
have plenty of tools that are ridiculously old doing a perfectly fine job
today still. That these are "unique" is more a sign of marketing and
development patterns than it is that software "goes bad." Seems similar to
asking if a clothes item should be labelled with a "will go out of fashion
by..." date.

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csense
Software should absolutely come with expiration dates, if they can be
determined in advance.

There are many practical problems, however. Here are a few that come to mind:

(1) Upstream components/API's often don't have explicit end-of-life plans or
expiry dates.

(2) Often, when or whether you shut down or breakingly change an API depends
on business conditions that are impossible to predict in advance.

(3) If you publish an expiration date and your competitor doesn't, people
might (usually mistakenly) believe their software is meant to last forever.
Honesty about your product's shortcomings, while ethical, can cost sales if
not everyone follows the same ethical standards. Regulation can help;
nutrition information on food, for example, is federally mandated in the US to
be present in a specific format. (Although I believe this only applies to food
sold in interstate commerce.)

(4) A "best before" date may force a company to use resources to support a
failed product. If you learn the hard way on launch day that only three people
and a dog are willing to buy it, normally you would just discontinue the
product and move on to something else. But if you've promised it will work
until 2016, you're still going to be spending development resources supporting
new OS's, library versions, upstream API changes, etc.

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fastball
Software in this regard is not different from other products - There is always
risk involved.

To use the authors analogy: You could purchase a car, and then the car dies.
You will not get the money back for the car unless you have a warranty. You
probably would not buy a car without a warranty, because the risk/benefit
analysis is not very positive. However, you buy software without a warranty.
Why? Because software has an element of risk, yes, but the risk is much less
significant than the risk of purchasing a car.

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rogerbinns
Software already comes with an expiry date. It is how long it is "supported"
for. Just like with consuming food beyond its expiry, you can continue to
consume software beyond its expiry, and you'll likely be just fine. But
sometimes you'll get sick.

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tmcw
Said more or less the same in an also-bummed-out post earlier this year:
<http://macwright.org/2012/06/13/programming.html>

