Abandoned Software
Dec. 4th, 2014 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzyjjHi all. Today I'd like to share with you something that has been on my mind more or less for awhile. In a previous entry on here I mentioned that I only have a few pet peeves, and today I'd like to talk about another of them. That is, software and website developers who just abandon their projects. Not so long ago I used a very cool program called Klango. In that particular case, the developers did eventually come back and make a formal announcement as to why there were no developments in their software for a somewhat lengthy period. One of their hiatuses was due to a flood that occurred in Poland, where they were or are still located. However, they eventually ceased development of Klango without any explanation. A similar thing happened with Winamp, a popular audio player. There was even a petition to keep Winamp alive and in good hands, but last I checked that petition went virtually nowhere. WeatherGale is another example. The developer of WeatherGale even placed a notice on his website clearly stating that his program had been taken down but would hopefully be restored.
But these stand-alone clients aren't the only ones to have been abandoned. The Friend Mail--a very accessible web interface for Facebook--was also abandoned not long ago by its developer. So my question here is this. Does this just happen to blindness-specific software, or is it common among other software too? Whichever the case may be, I find this trend rather disturbing. Not only were all these great programs, but one would think that their respective developers could show at least a little bit of love and actually tell us what is going on. In the case of commercial software that has been discontinued, couldn't the developers at least offer users a refund? That seems most logical to me. In addition, they could make the code open-source. I'm no software or hardware developer, but I'm quite certain that there's at least someone out there who could pitch in and take up development of said software.
But these stand-alone clients aren't the only ones to have been abandoned. The Friend Mail--a very accessible web interface for Facebook--was also abandoned not long ago by its developer. So my question here is this. Does this just happen to blindness-specific software, or is it common among other software too? Whichever the case may be, I find this trend rather disturbing. Not only were all these great programs, but one would think that their respective developers could show at least a little bit of love and actually tell us what is going on. In the case of commercial software that has been discontinued, couldn't the developers at least offer users a refund? That seems most logical to me. In addition, they could make the code open-source. I'm no software or hardware developer, but I'm quite certain that there's at least someone out there who could pitch in and take up development of said software.
