Socially|Mundane

A few months ago, Linden Lab notified all mac users that support for the 'Panther" edition of OS X would be discontinued. There were a few outcries, but nothing really major. I suspect it's because users of Apple's hardware do try hard to keep their stuff up to snuff with the latest and genuinely greatest. When they rolled out the new viewer that didn't support OS X Panther, I don't think anyone even noticed.

A couple months ago, Linden Lab made the official announcement that they will stop active support for Windows 2000. There was a more of an outcry than with the OS X announcement, but again not enough to make any waves as far as Linden lab is concerned.

Windows 2000 is long in the tooth and was geared mored for corporate use rather than consumer use:

Win2k Support Cancellation: "We wanted to make sure there was plenty of time for the news to spread, and now two months later, it’s time to actually cease support of this relatively little-used OS.

What does it mean to ‘stop support’? Basically, it means we stop new development for the SDK (software development kit) of that operating system, and also stop doing QA testing on Win2k.

What will you notice? If you are one of the few logging in with Windows 2000, you can still do so today, even though we are officially now not supporting it — and that may be true for some time."

What I'm waiting for will be the inevitable announcement that Linden Lab will no longer actively support Windows XP.

This announcement is a very long way off because of the flop that Windows Vista turned out to be, the majority of people on Windows XP are refraining from upgrading and those on Vista (for example pre-installed on a new machine) are rolling back to XP if they are able to.

This means Windows XP is deeply entrenched in the computer-using universe. However, there will be a day when hardware manufacturers will stop developing drivers for that graphic card or sound board or network adapter chip set.

Of course, being a Windows (XP!) and Macintosh user, I don't have many worries. There's no doubt I'll always be up to date on my Apple hardware and OS because it always is really worth the money I pay for it. The 'Windows box" is another story. Return on investment only happens when I allow it to be used until it's no longer usable.

The problem I have is that my Macintosh is such a pleasure to use in ALL things computing, that my actual productivity work is done on them. Microsoft windows (in my home, anyway) is completely useless except for Flight Simulator and Second Life.

And the day I decide to run Second Life on my Mac (which actually gives better performance and exponentially better graphics, even though my Windows Velocity machine is actually marketed as a "kick-ass gamer's system".)

I know I will dump my Microsoft Windows machine eventually, and just as unceremoniously as Linden lab drops support for Windows 2000.

Then I'll finally be 100% Microsoft-free.
Then and only then will I finally feel free.

via Second Life Grid Status