Out with the old

We make a suggestion that’s out of step with the times.

One of our consultants recently upgraded his computer operating system (he runs Linux).  It took several hours, all told, and afterward he found he had to reinstall Java, among other things.  That completed, he discovered that the icons for several actions he performs often were hidden, and others were not in their accustomed places, and some actions simply had to be done a different way.  So far he hasn’t noticed any improvement in performance, nor has he used any of the new capabilities.

These were mild annoyances compared to one of our friends, who uses his computer much more intensively and for much more complex tasks.  He finds that an upgrade will break parts of his system: things simply stop working.  He has come to dread upgrades.  Even when he can fix the problems (he can’t always), it takes a great deal of time and effort.

At this juncture we remembered two old laptops that we still have in the back room.  The software on them, especially the operating systems, is all quite obsolete.  And yet they both still work as well as they ever did.  Indeed, our astronomer is using one to analyze his data for a forthcoming paper.  None of us really need all the capabilities of the newest version of any operating system and would be content with the familiar form.

And yet, everyone really does have to upgrade.  Once a version of an operating system reaches a certain age, it is no longer supported.  That means it might not work with newer versions of applications or new applications.  More importantly, security updates are no longer issued.  We use our old laptops, but do not connect them to the Internet, since we’re not certain they’d be secure.

At this point we had a sudden thought: maybe there’s a business opportunity here.  Suppose one were to gather a set of coders, familiar both with some obsolete operating systems and associated software, and with current security threats.  Task them with updating the old code to keep it safe, and sell subscriptions to this service.  We think there is a significant number of people who are content with what they have and need no more, who would be interested in just being able to use it.

Of course there are potential problems.  Linux users are used to software and updates being free, and might resist paying for them.  There would probably be legal problems with proprietary systems.  There would certainly be resistance from companies who are trying to sell their latest versions, regardless of what their customers actually need.  And, not being software engineers ourselves, we’re not certain that obsolete systems can be kept safe for extended periods.  But we think software that has been around a while and is well known is more likely to be repairable than the latest, most complicated stuff.

There is an eventual time limit to this service, of course.  When all the hardware that will run old code has broken down, there will be no more demand for updates.  But we think that upgrades every couple of decades would be much more tolerable than every couple of years.