Re: xz-compressed release tarballs?

[Stan Shebs <stanshebs at earthlink dot net>]

On 1/28/12 3:09 PM, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> On Saturday 28 January 2012 03:18:47 Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > I see nothing ridiculous in a request to cater to a situation of your
> > fellow developer of Free Software, and don't understand how can you
> > ridicule such a request.
> sorry, but i really can't find anything worth replying to here.  being a free
> software developer doesn't mean being able to force people to adhere to what
> works on their personal legacy systems where the user refuses to upgrade the
> software.  that is unreasonable.
>
> i've got plenty of old systems, but i don't try and force everyone else to try
> and support them at the detriment of future progress.
> -mike

I have to take exception to this; there are several good reasons to make 
allowance for older and legacy systems.

One is that our volunteers are just that - working on the software on 
their own time, and without spare cash (or time) to upgrade to the 
latest and greatest hardware or software.

Another is that free software has frequently been able to displace 
proprietary software on older systems, as a way to extend useful life.  
This has been a major factor in the spread and acceptance of free software.

A third is that the requirement to run on a variety of systems is good 
for self-discipline.  When our code has "all the world's a Vax", "all 
the world's an x86", or "all the world is Linux" assumptions wired into 
it, that reduces our ability to adapt when all the world changes to 
something else.

So while we can certainly debate whether this feature or that helps or 
hinders future progress, I don't think it's in our interests to 
disparage all the legacy support.

Stan