this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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FOSS is notoriously low quality and can disappear at any given time when the developer(s) lose motivation. Don't get me wrong, I love them too, but I'll also gladly pay for something more polished and sustainable.
Proprietary software is also notoriously low-quality and can disappear at any time when the developer loses motivation. Additionally, because the software is closed source, nobody else is able to continue the development of proprietary abandonware. On the other hand, abandoned FOSS projects can be forked and continued, which is something I see often.
This is just a false equivalency. Do both of those things happen in both cases? Sure. Does it happen WAY more often with FOSS? Also yes. Just go through F-Droid or Flathub and look at the long list of apps that haven't been updated in years.
Paid software is typically not something someone does in their free time to fill a resume for a real job. It's something they are able to dedicate real time to because it pays their bills and they have obligations to their paying users. They can also hire other people who also gets their bills paid and have similar obligations.
Neither one is inherently better.
"not updated in years" didn't used to be considered a bad thing. Why is it one now?
If something works well for me as it is and runs locally in a way that doesn't open itself up to remote exploits, I don't necessarily need it to keep changing all the time. Even if it would be nice if it had more features, the software works fine for me as it is. I don't need those updates now or this year.
The only true "need" is that it doesn't stop working for me when the various platforms or compilers change. I used to use a Python2 program, and I could keep using it for about a decade after its last update, but eventually I did need to move past it because Python3 had long since replaced it and distros stopped shipping Python2. A year or two of no updates it's nothing.