Comment by gzread
16 hours ago
Feetures being dropped because nobody wants to support them is a prominent feature of free software. That's part of "no warranty". If it does bother you, you're supposed to step up to support it yourself, or pay someone to.
Okay, but that's the exact opposite of what we're discussing here? Linux, which is free software, isn't dropping features because nobody wants to support them, but because nobody's using them. Meanwhile, macOS, developed as a commercial product and with a much weaker showing of open source or even source availability, is dropping features because Apple doesn't want to support them.
> Linux, which is free software, isn't dropping features because nobody wants to support them, but because nobody's using them.
I disagree. They are dropping support because nobody is maintaining them. There may very well be people still using these features, but they haven't been motivated or aren't properly skilled to offer to maintain them going forward, and haven't motivated some other skilled person via payments.
Rather, the core difference is that Apple does not offer a way to have external people take over providing support.