<OT> 20 years a long time, unless you have the source... (was: Re: upgrade 8.04 -> 9.04+kde3: how?)

[Ignazio Palmisano]

Chris Jones wrote:
>> I would be willing to bet that baring unforeseen catastrophes KDE 3.x
>> will still run twenty years from now. I have one old laptop that still
>> has DOS 6.2/Windows 3.1 and works just great. My old TRS80, TI-99-4A  
>> and
>> CoCo still work also.
> 
> You won't be able to run KDE 3.X 20 years from now on the new machines  
> available then. Bet you won't have much luck installing DOS6.2/Win3.1  
> on new machine now ...

Because we don't have the source code :P otherwise we *could* recompile, 
change, fix, hammer in place or swear at it until we had a shiny 
3.11/6.22 working on the newest machine. WHY anyone would want that, for 
the same reason people have AMIGA, ATARI & others simulators nowadays, I 
guess...

For KDE, the source is available, so unless it gets wiped out from all 
the servers it will be available in 20 years from now. I'd bet a fiver 
that someone will want to compile and run it, just so they can show it 
to their grandchildren and make a new oldtimer joke like: back in my 
time we had to type the code in one letter at a time! and the Macs 
didn't even have a DEL button!

I.

> 
> Yeah, if someone has in 20 years time a 20 year on machine, they will  
> still be able to run 20 year on software. Doesn't prove much...
> 
> Chris
>