Slashdot Mirror
A Call For Rollbacks To Previous Versions of Software
colinneagle writes "In a blog post, Andy Patrizio laments the trend — made more common in the mobile world — of companies pushing software updates ahead without the ability to roll back to previous versions in the event that the user simply doesn't like it. iOS 7.1, for example, has reportedly been killing some users' battery power, and users of the iTunes library app TuneUp will remember how the much-maligned version 3.0 effectively killed the company behind it (new owners have since taken over TuneUp and plans to bring back the older version).
The ability to undo a problematic install should be mandatory, but in too many instances it is not. That's because software developers are always operating under the assumption that the latest version is the greatest version, when it may not be. This is especially true in the smartphone and tablet world. There is no rollback to be had for anything in the iOS and Android worlds. Until the day comes when software developers start releasing perfectly functioning, error-free code, we need the ability to go backwards with all software."
The ability to undo a problematic install should be mandatory, but in too many instances it is not. That's because software developers are always operating under the assumption that the latest version is the greatest version, when it may not be. This is especially true in the smartphone and tablet world. There is no rollback to be had for anything in the iOS and Android worlds. Until the day comes when software developers start releasing perfectly functioning, error-free code, we need the ability to go backwards with all software."
Is the reason why Sony's firmware updates to its consoles cannot be rolled back.
This story reminds of the wisdom of this cliche ...
"Those that forget the lessons of the past
are condemned to repeat the same mistakes"
I see this "latest-is-greatest" fallacious attitude all the time. New version adds new features, fixes bugs, but introduces new bugs or rose redesigns the UI. i.e. WinAmp 3, TeamSpeak 3, etc.
The problem is that there is no good solution. What is the developer supposed to do when ...
* Older version has major security issues
* Newer version has a fracked up UI, bloatware, etc.
Now what is the customer supposed to do?
I agree though, that in the majority of cases, a "Bill of Software Rights" would be good:
* Users have the right to _rollback_
This whole we-are-always-right started with Microsoft and IE. GOD forbid you actually _need_ to run _multiple_ different versions for testing!
Are the updates where the hardware requirements have changed so much that you effectively have to buy new hardware. Obviously, not an issue for phones, but annoying as hell on PCs.
Or the company that comes out with an (non-free) upgrade ~every~ year, necessary or not, and immediately stops supporting the previous version. "Yeah, we know about that rare bug. It's fixed in the latest version, which will only cost you $150k, across your user base, to upgrade to."
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
You can avoid the pain of new releases, at least in most cases, by simply deferring the upgrade until a period of time has passed whereby the new release will be vetted by those eager to try it.
This is news to me and this information sheet from Apple. Which device is causing the issue?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
I'd settle for having the updates not include a NEW locked bootloader. Waited ages for the 4.2 update only to have a new nasty bootloader installed along with it. Lame.
Developers don't like having a lot of different versions of their software out in the world because it means they have to maintain those versions. Adding some sort of default rollback ability implies that devs will have to continue to support those old versions. That's not going to be very popular.
"If they send someone here, I'll arrange the usual 'accident.'" -- Alice, "Dilbert"
Never mind I found your issue in the FAQ (stupid HTML 5 bullshit). I wonder which device is the one lacking support and if there is an alternate source of the driver.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
... you should be able to install whatever version of software you want on your phone.
The *only* think I want from a phone is a safe enough firmware bootloader that if someone installs something that doesn't work on a device, they can un-brick it and replace it with something that works.
That would handle the specific case of "rollbacks" this article want; as well as the more general case of deleting Windows Phone and putting Android on the otherwise nice hardware.
Rollback functionality is also not guaranteed to be perfectly functioning, error-free code, and there's no guarantee that reverting to the previous software version will also revert the user experience to its previous status.
Software updates sometimes change the internal format of its database. What makes you think that a company that produces a buggy new version is capable of creating bug-free code to backport the upgraded data to the old format?
All android phones I've owned (and most I'm aware of) have the option to flash any version of their software (some only signed official versions of course). The only problem is getting the older version - even the latest version isn't always the easiest to get hold of simply from the manufacturer - but they can usually be found easily enough via google.
It's because windows 7 cant cope with the modern hardware.
Which is why I run Windows 7 under a VM on Mavericks (well actually multiple VM's with different versions of W7)
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
If the code was perfect to start out with, there wouldn't be any need for bug fixes type of update.
So this is like a bandage for the bandage.
Too many developers with CS degrees, too few with SE degrees, and nearly none with IS degrees. See http://www.acm.org/education/c... for more details on the differences.
Not a big deal. With 64G RAM it'll be easy to start up a VMware image of Win7Pro-x64 and give it 2 or 4 cores and 16-32G.
Multiboot is so last decade/century.
If you have good backups, you should still be able to restore. Sure, you trash whatever you might've done since the upgrade, but sometimes it's worth it.
Of course, that's not the case on the iPad -- you might've done the smart thing and backed up everything before testing a new iOS update, but once it's applied, it *will* *not* let you restore the old OS.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
So many project files will have "version strings". Unless the project is translated into the newer version and saved with a new version string, the code will repeat all old runs. This strange thing goes down the food chain. Some CAD companies would let you "choose" an API from the older version at run time.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Easy enough for a desktop application when all you have to do is uninstall the new version, and install the older one. A little more complex for your PC or laptop's OS: you need is enough free space on the disk drive to store all the originals and a somewhat elaborate restoration routine. The idea's great, but there are limiting factors for a phone (disk space, processing power). Whats more is all the different firmwares for radios, gps, etc. which should, but don't always like to take a step back if you simply install the old firmware over top. Maybe we could just download all of the OS and factory restore the whole thing to whatever version. This would work, but it's kind of a hassle for your average user - probably not what Andy meant. Moors law dictates these devices will become more powerful, so maybe in the not-so-distant future. Really though, if they can't get the new OS to work right why do you think they could perfect a restoration routine. Who is this guy anyhow?
I suspect this has more to do with the way new hardware devices are certified by Microsoft than some conspiracy at Apple. I am glad you said something I would have never checked the FAQ until I had a new Mac Pro and was trying to install Windows 7 on the one user's machine who insists on buying an Apple product and running Windows on it.
Luckily everyone else in this office uses OS X on Apple hardware because we are mostly a Linux/OS X unix shop. I think all companies have at least one troublesome user.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
That's because software developers are always operating under the assumption that the latest version is the greatest version, when it may not be.
No it's not. It's because engineering for backward compatibility and maintaining multiple versions is both difficult and expensive. Building, testing and maintaining multiple backward compatible versions is an expense that most app vendors probably can't afford.
Old, unmaintained legacy versions may not have security fixes for reported problems. And if well in open source software may have maintainers for old versions if enough liked them, for companies may not be profitable to keep updating old versions (unless the support contract/terms of service forces them).
It's hideously ugly, all the numbers look curly and feminine and if I put my fully charged phone to sleep on Friday when I leave the office, the battery of this unused sleeping phone dead when I come in on Monday.
It's not just my phone, but all other members on my team too.
I hate (really hate) that Apple will never let you go back to a previous version of iOS. In fact, I dread if any of my iOS 6 devices ever mistakenly get updated to 7.
So, rollback?
It's expected that we should be able to do this. Especially if your device is more than a few years old, and you update it, then the update doesn't work for you you can't roll it back AND Apple will no longer support the device, so you're simply screwed.
The ability to rollback an OS should be a requirement, unless that version of the OS is fatally flawed for some reason.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
in its* infinite wisdom
it's = it is
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
The problem with making the argument that you should be able to revert to older versions of software is that software is more and more getting at least some functionality from a server component. Sure that server has to allow migration from an older version to the next, but the truth is you just can't maintain server versions for every client forever.
This isn't even a mobile only issue anymore as lots of desktop software these days has server interaction. It's a consequence of moving to a world with more pervasive networking.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is just a manifestation of the complaint of the lack of control a user has over their device. It comes as no surprise that phones and tablets are the worst offenders; these devices typically allow the user less freedom.
But you CAN'T try out the software first. You can't try it out and see if it works for you or not.
There is no back switch. There is no test drive. The user has little choice.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Ultimately, the best solution is for the users to quit being such whiney bitches.
Open source released software.
Don't like the new version? Fork it yourself, and fix it yourself.
Or stop whining.
Unfortunately when you are dealing will phone apps you have to deal with two things;
Firstly a continual stream of minor updates. Are you going to test every single one? Personally I have a life, and am not intent on being a beta tester for most of it.
Secondly, automated updates. Again, I don't want to spend half of my free time performing manual updates. So often allowing automatic updates is the only solution.
But yes, there is nothing more annoying to discover that the latest version is broken in some regard, and you would be better off with the older version, which is now unobtainable.
Same goes for applications that have bloated to the point where what used to be functional on your moderately aged phone, is now unusable because it has been coded and tested on the very latest hardware.
Where have we seen in consumer space the ability to rollback an uncompleted install? Once it's installed, the only way back is to find a previous installer, nuke, and reinstall.
This has been standard IT procedure since Microsoft invented "service packs."
Indeed, and since way before too.
It used to be that you never went for the x.0. Nowadays, we have to be wary of getting any x.y.0
-- "Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability." --Dijkstra
This is exactly why I didn't upgrade to iOS 7 when it came out. I had heard that Apple invalidated the checksum for iOS 6 so you couldn't install it from a backup in case you needed to restore your phone after upgrading. My iPhone 4 worked rock-solid with iOS 6, but I had heard iOS 7 had extremely bad performance on it.
Since iOS 7.2 was recently released and supposedly offered better performance on the iPhone 4, I decided to roll the dice and install it. No problems so far over the past week (fingers crossed). The only issue I had was Numbers got updated automatically, now making that version incompatible with the version on my iMac running Mountain Lion, so I was basically forced to upgrade that to Mavericks just so I could open spreadsheets on both. Thankfully, the upgrade to Mavericks was pretty smooth too, and my computer actually seems to be running better. That used to be the case with OS X up until the change from Snow Leopard to Lion.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
It seems to be an increasingly common tactic for games developers to put out an advert-free game, wait for it to gain market share, then force an 'upgrade' that has no improvements at all, but is crammed with so many adverts that the game is barely playable. I deleted "4 words 1 picture" when it turned into "4 words, 1 picture, 1 full screen advert", but I would rather have kept the old, playable version on my phone.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
What kind of fucktard invests $10,000 in a UNIX workstation and then puts Windows on it...the amount of people running Windows on a Mac Pro can be counted on one hand.
I realized that Windows 8 is pretty good when I got my first BSOD Sunday while updating the video driver. I hadn't even thought about the fact that using Win 8 since release I had never had this happen, until it finally did after so much use. Windows self-repaired on reboot, and the system is rock-solid again.
On topic: I had to abandon SpashID Safe when an automatic update hosed the software, losing data and making the UI less-pleasant. I'm now happy with mSecure, and have automatic updates turned off so I can read reviews before install. I wouldn't have to do this if rollback was allowed.
You should be able to roll back, but there is a couple problems.
!. the older versions of your software are probably riddled with security holes. where the newer version will at least buy you some time before they get hacked.
2. seeing how these companies just about refuse to create patches, and go into denial, and or blow them off until someone exposes it to the masses, about known vulnerabilities, it would be more difficult to get them to keep patches coming when someone exposes another hole.
If I remember right that was pretty much the argument these companies used, in refusing to allow users to roll back software.
Because before they were using a hacky hybrid gpt-mbr partition table to get windows installed on the mac, also emulating a BIOS. They have just simplified the whole process booting windows in pure uefi gpt, now that windows 8 properly supports it.
Also, new hardware = new drivers = new OS
don't forget it's = it has, and a few others as well. As in it's come to may attention that...
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
- Windows you can backup / restore / reload .... ooops.....
- Andriod you can backup / restore / reload
- UNIX you can backup / restore / reload
- OSX you can backup / restore / reload
- iOS you can
It does like like there may be some rollback options for iOS users, though. See http://downgradeios7.com/.
But you CAN'T try out the software first.
It's for exactly those cases that the GP is suggesting letting other people try it out first.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Indeed. In fact you may fall several versions behind waiting for reliability and/or usability to return to previous levels. Personally I'm just about ready to upgrade from XP to Windows 7 on my gaming rig, except that I'd need to upgrade a fair bit of hardware to maintain the same performance.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
It would be nice if there was an option for automatic deferred updates - don't apply an update unless X weeks have passed with fewer than Y% of users complaining.
Rollbacks on the other hand can introduce all sorts of issues with anything that stores non-trivial settings or changes internal file formats. It's easy enough for version N+1 to support and upgrade all previous versions, but do a rollback and there's no way for version N to support the changes made by N+1.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I've been in charge of update deployment and strategy for several companies now. There's a few issues that come into play when deciding whether an update can be reverted or not. For a trivial app that doesn't maintain much data there's no real issue. Anything that does maintain real data, you must determine whether the database schema change between version A and version B is backwards compatible so that you can roll from B back to A. If the database schema change is incompatible, then you can't roll back. Same thing with on-disk data formats in general. I have Fedora 20 installed on one of my systems. If I wanted to roll back to the previous Centos 6 I couldn't, because the XFS file system format changed between 2.6.32 and 3.12. Centos won't mount Fedora 20 XFS filesystems.
Then there's binary compatibility issues. One release of one employer's software was based on Fedora 7 with a lot of modifications (different kernel, various applications updated, etc.). The next major release was, due to a gigantic change in hardware architecture for their newest systems, based on Fedora 13, including a major version update to Postgres for the database. The upgrade process runs out of a special imaging initrd and consists of save off the database with pg_dump to a couple of data drives, wipe out the base OS, plop on the new base OS, install the new application layer on top of the base OS, and restore the database with pg_restore. The pg_dump and pg_restore are necessary because the binary format of Postgres databases changed between the two different versions of Postgres. Downgrading in this case is impossible because the older version didn't know how to do pg_dump and pg_restore, since its previous releases had used the same antique version of Postgres (a version so old it wouldn't even compile under Fedora 13).
Finally, there's the question of whether an update scheme even has provisions for forcing arbitrary versions. The ones I've designed did, mostly because they were for very large data storage appliances where you didn't want anything updating automatically because scheduling a service outage for the update is a Big Deal for big data storage systems and where you needed the ability to roll back to the previous version if the update happened half-baked (if, say, the power supplies both blew out halfway through the update and left it only halfway on the disk). So you had to manually select which version you wished to update to, based on a list of what was compatible with your hardware and current installed version. But it appears to me that Apple has no such ability within their App Store interface. They make only the latest version available, period, even if it isn't compatible with your older iDevice.
So: Being able to roll back to the older version of the software is a lofty goal. But sometimes it just isn't feasible. On our web application once the database format has been updated to a new incompatible schema and new data is flowing in, there's no going back -- even though we saved off a copy of the old database before doing the database schema change, going back would discard all the new data that's flowed in since. So we cross our fingers, run it in parallel with a clone of the old system's data stream for a while to assure ourselves it won't blow up, and test the bleep out of it before cutting it over as the active version. Because once it's been in service for over a couple of hours there's no going back -- people may tolerate losing a few updates, but not days worth.
That said, when I had my Europa Universalis IV save games wiped out by an update to EUIV that Steam auto-updated without my consent or knowledge, I certainly was peeved! I should have at least been given the opportunity to *not* update, which even Apple gives you. That would have allowed me to spend a couple of days researching the update and waiting for people's feedback on whether it was worthy or not. Instead... sigh. So it goes.
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Anyone remember TuneUp for iTunes? I got an email from the TuneUp team a couple days ago announcing the developers had reclaimed the codebase. Seems after the 3.0 release which was apparently so bad and no way to revert to 2.4, that they had a user uprising and the company literally imploded dealing with the ongoing crises. Seems in this case, having a rollback plan in place could have saved the company by giving angry users an out and averting a complete crises.
You're not? And you think that every application developer should devote time and money to making up for that?
Wow, that's great. Windows ran a few months without a blue screen of death. Meanwhile over here where we use reliable operating systems, a contractor hotswapped a CPU in one of my machines. It kept running fine. That machine has had two replacements of the boot drive in the last few years. No reboots needed for those either.
The point of most of the updates to mobile devices, especially in the case of Apple, is to patch security flaws which allowed users to jailbreak their devices. If users could downgrade their OS, Apple would be powerless to prevent people from escaping the walled garden. Nintendo did the same thing with the Wii; the sole purpose of several updates was to break the Homebrew Channel. Honestly, I'm surprised we're not forced to upgrade as soon as the update is ready, although I imagine that will change in the coming years.
And how is XP, by the way? I'm running 98, but it's getting a little long in the tooth. I'm thinking about upgrading to XP this April 8, when I'll consider it to be fairly well tested.
The only thing you get from Android app updates is more ads. I let it update my kitchen timer app. The new version was the same as the old one but came with fucking banner ads. So I've learned to never, ever update anything on my phone.
But that's not as bad as Google who pushed a Chrome update that removed the buttons from the scrollbar. I guess nobody at Google has ever used a touch pad.
:wq
Fortunately Windows reboots often so it will keep itself in pristine shape.
You know all that trivia, but can't tell its from it's?
there were articles complaining that software was never updated on mobile devices, even though the technical facility to do so was.
Now that is is being updated, complain about that, too.
If companies kept a backwards compatibility support team, the cost of new products would be higher... and you would complain about that, too, I suppose.
The CS major can calculate the time complexity of the rollback algorithm.
The SE thinks that allowing for rollback might be a good idea.
The IS person cusses the PM who didn't allow for rollback because OF COURSE you should plan for contingencies.
It's nice that this is about Apple... But the first thing that popped into my mind was XP -> Vista.
Providing the option to rollback an update is *expensive*. If this must be mandatory, it will significantly increase development costs and turnaround time, and these costs will be passed on to the consumer.
Be careful what you wish for.
Is it still possible to download old updates for windows 98? If I were to install it in a VM would I be able to update it to the latest?
Quite good actually. It takes a little getting used to, but the stability improvements are enormous. I'd recommend skipping it though, 7 has reached the point that it's an improvement in almost every way, way better than the 95->98 transition, though it does have somewhat higher system requirements and there are some serious issues with backwards compatibility, especially with 16-bit software. Still, 98 mostly works without issue in most virtual machines.
Speaking of VMs, can anyone recommend a cross-platform option (Linux and Windows especially) where configured machines can be reliably moved between platforms? I'd like to be able to set up a win98 VM with all my old games - the sort of thing that will never change beyond adding new game saves, and then just install the VM software on whatever platform I have and copy the configured VM over. I've tried VirtualBox and VMware, and they both tend to have serious issues that mean I'm lucky to even get the copied VM to boot much less run stably.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Strangely enough, comparing feature for feature and chip for chip, the Mac Pro is slightly cheaper than the other brands of PCs. So, running Windows 7 or 8 is something that can be useful on this hardware.
I haven't upgraded past IOS 5.1.1, for these same reasons. I finally had a need to upgrade recently, when an application that I wanted to run required IOS 6. Unfortunately, the only version I can upgrade to is IOS 7. There is no way, in a thousand years, that I will upgrade to that piece of garbage OS. Every time I have to use my wife's phone, I get nauseated from the way everything flies around the screen. It's very reminiscent of motion sickness. My next OS update will come with a hardware upgrade to an Android phone.
A program without bugs is either trivial or expensive to produce. In most cases, it's not worth the time and money necessary to prove the correctness of a program.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
if I put my phone to sleep on Friday when I leave the office, it's dead when I come in on Monday.
Uh...
It's not just my phone, but all other members on my team too.
That's it. I'm calling the police.
Maybe I'm weird, but when an operating system gives me a blue screen of death, my reaction is not to be impressed with how stable and reliable it us.
You know what would be cool? If there was some way to release the underlying instructions that make up a piece of software and then give the users the ability to see those instructions. The users could then change the instructions as they saw fit. There would need to be some process to move the human readable instructions into something understood by machines, but there are other programs that could do this.
Now not everyone could understand the instructions. In that case, others could share the binary things that they created, and also distribute the instructions just so others can verify.
The beauty of this is that if there's enough demand, many people will create the machine readable versions but the instructions are still readily available for those cases where the majority versions are not adequate.
Hated by baby ducks afraid of change?
I'm a little mystified as to why some moderator decided that my post was off-topic. I consider "rollback" to include "let me install an older version if I have the discs for it."
I remember the old joke this way:
"Thank you for installing Windows by Microsoft, where quality is job 1.1"
John
If I had been able to stay on iOS6 (which works with my poor vision) I would have continued to use Apple products. As it is now al their products are purposely being made hard to use for people with bad eyesight just cause they look "cooler". ROLLBACK FOR THE PEOPLE!
Until the day comes ... we need the ability to go backwards with all software.
Portable apps offer this and related features for a large body of applications on the Windows desktop.
Disclaimer: I use apps in this format a lot. I met the founder a few years ago at OSCON -- I'm making the extra effort to plug the project here because he's a friendly, dedicated, focused guy.
No (or none worth considering) 3D CAD programs offer backward compatibility (i.e., 'save as') because added features and methods change the core file format.
Isn't there a way to make image copies in these mobile phones so we can restore when needed like we do on computers?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
So I've learned to never, ever update anything on my phone.
Or root it and install Titanium Backup, whenever I get a bum update I just leave a bad review and then install the backup from the previous night.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
that works until your old version has a major security hole and your choice becomes moving to the new version or risking being exploited: for example I've always run my ipad2 on ios5 until ios7 was released, then ios6, but now I *had* to update to ios7 due to the ios6 patch for the major security hole not being available to me (given that my ipad2 can run ios7 itunes only gave me the choice to update to that).
I completely agree with this article, I also think there are no reasons but greed to prevent itunes from installing old applications on your old idevice, I have an old ipod touch 1st gen that still works perfectly, have a lot of still very useful apps on it, but if something happened and I had to wipe it I would not be able to reinstall pretty much any of them due to the itunes store not allowing me to, it's a really bad state of affairs (for users) but then again that's what happens when you buy into a walled garden ecosystem, you are at the mercy of what's more convenient/makes more money for the company, not what's best for you.
-- the cake is a lie
Why would Apple want Office on iOS? the iWork suite is just dandy.
Greater acceptance in the business community? There are still plenty of corporate IT staffers who refuse to acknowledge anything made by Apple if for no other reason than the support requirements of a Microsoft environment is job security for them.
I agree compleatly...So many headaches can be avoided by simply waiting for the bugs to be ironed out.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -Carl Sagan
Better to find bugs and fix them and improve than to stay on old versions.
Debian FTW! Oh, wait, that's usually 2 - 3 behind! :-)
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
about the lack of backward compatibility in 3D CAD software. SolidWorks (for instance, but they all are pretty much guilty of the same strategy) will not allow you to save a file that can be opened by a previous version. They pretty much force you to buy a "subscription" to keep your software up to date, and hope your customers/stakeholders all do the same. They say it's impossible to create a converter that would allow backward compatibility.....
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
They made enterprise-level software that used a web interface. They were "the opposite of Agile", often two YEARS behind on browser support. Then they moved to Agile, and wanted to target ONLY the latest/greatest browsers. I convinced Product Management to target the most common versions in enterprise environments, plus newer versions.
So: IE 8 plus IE 9.
Firefox ESR 17. (They were going to go from "we only support Firefox 3" to "we only support Firefox 21".)
Etc.
Firefox was the big sell. With FF move to rapid releases, trying to target an exact version was folly. (We had a STRICT support policy, and while the process was agile, it was still slow - by the time the release actually came out if they had said "Firefox 21 only", what would have happened a week later when FF 22 came out? Or before the release actually went to customers, even.) By targeting the ESR branch, we got stability.
My reaction would be how shit the video driver was.
Be thankful developers and companies put in the time and effort to migrate your data forward.
You want to migrate it backwards? Prepare to pay up. Big time.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Your homework assignment for tonight is to write 5000 words comparing and contrasting the requirement that developers allow rollback of buggy releases with the requirement that developers keep their customers up-to-date with security fixes. For extra credit, discuss the consumer benefits of being able to apply individual patches a la carte versus the engineering cost of creating and maintaining a library of patches that can be applied independent of each other.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Shared dependencies:
Packages A and B both depend on shared library C. A critical bug is discovered in package A that requires a change to library C. Package B releases an update to stay compatible with library C. It turns out that the update to B doesn't work. There is no way to revert B to the previous version since this also requires reverting library C and package A to the version with the critical bug.
Testing:
Each old reversion point for any sort of shared library means that every package that is dependent on that library has to be fully tested with each version of the shared library. Add in multiple shared libraries and the test case tree becomes very bushy since all permutations and combinations of the shared libraries must be tested.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Next on Nancy Grace: "iPhone Torture Cabal Nabbed in Software Company. They left phones unplugged for days while they starved to death. Public stoning at noon. Bring your own throwing rocks."
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
I'd like to be able to set up a win98 VM with all my old games...
Serious question here...
Where do you find drivers for modern hardware that works in Win98?
My problem trying to do this very thing has been finding graphics drivers for Win98. None of the so called 'generic drivers' have worked for me, and the only two solutions I have reached is:
1) run some *nix distro + WINE for a few
2) keep one of my retired boxes that I can run Win98 on that I have/can find drivers for(I don't have the space for this)
If I could find a working 'generic' SVGA driver to run Win98 in VirtualBox on my current PC(Linux/Win7 dual-boot), I would be a very happy camper. It is something I have tried to get working off and on for some years now.
BTW, a cross-platform option would be sweet!
I have always thought that I was just missing some knowledge about VM's, but having looked for a while, it is either hard to do, or the knowledge is well hidden,IMHO.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Whoa, slow do there. I only recently updated to Windows 7. How did you get up to 98 already?
This is unnecessary, Apple doesn't make mistakes.
Airwatch is guilty of this. They release a new version every two weeks and it breaks something. They refuse to let you downgrade.
Never.
I got forcibly(*) upgraded to Plants vs. Zombies 2. I hate the new version. They changed the game dynamics completely.
I would rather go back to the old version.
* EA truly forced the update on me.... when I tried to launch the old version it said it was required to be upgraded ... I'm not sure what we're talking about here would fix that.
Tuneup 3 did what it had to do, it killed the company and made the annoying VCs pestering them for updates go away so they could spend more time on the hookers and blow. The game was up and the game was never delivering a good product, that was only ever a hook.
Since Windows has a ton of scope creep and behind the scenes changes that go on it seems with ever update or install, I leverage Acronis' Try and Decide feature. It works although I haven't tried it at the full O/S upgrade level. For that I still use Acronis in terms of a full backup and recovery if necessary. For all other updates or new installs I really like Try & Decide. I have never tried it but there's also Returnil which a lot of people seem to have good luck with as well.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
sigh. there was an app I used quite a lot and it worked well on my old android 2.x phone (N1). it was 'open source' but the source tree was not tagged by version and the lazy-ass developer could not be bothered to list which versions of each file worked for the old series of phones. I emailed him and tried to work with him but he said he didn't really care or have time and I'm on my own.
the latest version tree will not build or run for my phone and since the phone works fine, still, I'm NOT throwing it out and restarting.
so, I have to be sure to keep the old apk around and never auto update it. and I can't really build it for my phone since the source tree is a total mess.
not only the apps; the phone is a mess since google abandoned it and never fixed some major showstopper bugs (screen x,y alignment being the main one, but also the fact that gps crashes the phone while you drive. before trips, I have to do a full reboot just so that gps won't die during the drive!)
software quality is quite bad for android, I have to say. color me unimpressed, overall.
I won't ever pick an apple phone (even though the sw qual is much better). I'm hoping a 3rd choice will present itself so I can dump android.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
that if it is not broken, don't fix it ! This is true for many things in life, and I'm glad we have such a trivial example for this wisdom as smart-phone upgrades. Please, leave it as it is.
Mac Rollback. We update our computer over and over again to keep it able to run the latest stuff. Then when it is too obsolete, we replace it and roll the old mac back to its prime config for running old games like Myst. Likewise, when your hardware runs the latest software runs too slow it need to be rolled back so that it can at least run the software of its time efficiently.
Uninstaller + Installer = Roleback.
Have not got the relevant installer? Why not? Where are your backups?
Your device does not allow/ support backups? Is it any good as a phone? because if the ability to backup is not there then the Operating system is simply defective. (listen up Microsoft with your "home" versions)
I do NOT want the functionality to rollback from v.n+1 to v.n. Anybody who has worked in software long enough knows that is inherently risky, no matter how trivial the application may seem.
What I want are products that can support proper backup and restore procedures. I don't care if I have to backup the database, filesystem and create a copy of the moon somehow. Just freaking tell me to do it, I'll figure out how, and then tell me the steps to properly restore it. Should something blow up, I'll have a LOT less downtime restoring to a backup than trying to troubleshoot what went wrong.
I don't know what this API thing you are talking about even means. Stop releasing stuff that doesn't work. Are you saying that cloud is more expensive now?
Apple can't even support their own 3-year old OSes, and you expect them to support Microsoft's?
Thought I should point out the Apple Appstore actually allows to you make all old versions available. Though its quite well hidden:
http://9to5mac.com/2013/09/17/ios-app-store-now-allows-legacy-app-downloads-to-support-older-hardware-and-software/
Not always possible.
Consider this: Sparkly Diamond Miner 2.0 hits the Google Play Store. You have 1.0. You smugly tell yourself "I'm going to wait for 3.0 before downloading 2.0, assuming there are no reported problems". Then Sparkly Diamond Miner updates to 3.0 on the Play Store. "Yay!", you say, "I'll upgrade! Also the social media functions of SDM 3.0 only work with friends using 3.0 and 2.0 so I pretty much have to!", and with that you go to the Google Play Store and install 2.0.
Except you don't, because you can't. You can only install 3.0. 2.0 isn't available, because the Play Store doesn't give you obsolete versions. So you're still stuck with the latest version, or you can stick with the unsupported version that has that annoying bug and means you can't spend $5 on 3 golden pickaxes that'll help you get a level 7 mine a little quicker because they don't sell them any more.
Off topic question, am I getting too cynical about mobile apps?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Chromebooks also suffer from this problem. I cursed Google when the V30 'upgrade' was pushed out in October 2013. Reconnect to Wifi from sleep could take several minutes! At least they fixed it in V31 six weeks later.
Message to Google: Allow rollbacks for Chromebooks!
Given the bandwidth and bugs I sometimes wish Firefox had an HTML1.0 only setting ... but then I read quickly and I don't have the patience to sit through long videos. Certainly don't need embedded videos and most images. But a switch that let me see HTML5 as if it were HTML3 or HTML1 would be helpful.
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
Are we asking for the wrong thing here? I don't think we really the security holes, less efficient code, and fewer features that come with rolling back software to a previous version. What we really want is the former user experience, correct? Maybe instead of asking for the ability to rollback software, we should be asking that developers uncouple the user interface from the core functionality (which good software design dictates anyway) so that we can move to the new interface, say v3.0 or choose to use any of the previous ones as well, say v1.0, v2.0, etc. Or, maybe simply including the option to use former user interface elements in new versions.
Where I work, we have 5k OSX users and most, if not all, have a VM running Win7 (Out of ~35k users) -- including myself on one of my MacPros (The other is too old to effectively do it). I also have two windows machines (desktop and laptop).
As someone who doesn’t root my iPhone and would prefer nobody else do so, there is a key advantage to me to Apple’s preventing downgrades of the iOS version on a device. If an old release contains a security flaw that would allow access to secured data on the device which a newly patched version would prevent, allowing an install of the older version would allow an attacker to downgrade, exploit the bug, and extract data from my device. Jailbreaking a device amounts to removing all effective protections in terms of access security that the device may provide for data stored on it. Many (but certainly not all) jailbreaks exploited vulnerabilities at an OS-software level, and patching those vulnerabilities made it impossible to jailbreak an updated device. That doesn’t apply to the devices that had exploitable vulnerabilities in the ROM boot block of course; and that was an issue on several of the devices.
Ensuring that older vulnerable versions cannot be installed on my device is a security feature to me. It’s also a limitation of my freedom, and it makes the device less “mine.” Looking at the alternatives and what I *personally* want to do with (and want done to) my iDevice, I’ve decided this is a better option for me. I’m not prevented from using the device in the manner for which it was marketed, and potentially some would-be attackers are thwarted from extracting data from my device. Certainly there’s more that I could potentially do with the device in terms of home-rolled firmware, but I’m at the point where I really and truly don’t want to “hack” on my cell phone with all the potential issues that come with that (battery drain, instability, insecurity, etc.). I want to pull my iPhone out of my pocket and make a phone call. Apple’s update policy doesn’t prevent that, and their QA is reasonably good in terms of the battery drain and related issues being a relative minority of their users. I’m willing to take the risk of updating.
In a perfect world, boot loader security might be accomplished with a key that’s under my control rather than under Apple’s. Maybe a card / USB stick in the box with the private key for the boot loader and a “lose this at your peril” warning. The device could take official Apple updates without the key (better if that was a configurable option), or take any software with the key. Of course the support nightmare that would ensue would be insane, and Apple would never do it as it’s a definite UX detraction for any but the most geeky of buyers.
RMS’ great vision of full control of all of our hardware is a nice one, but in the mean time I’m content to enter compromises with companies that have reasonable histories of “not being evil” in the areas which directly effect me. I’m good with Apple and how they handle their iThing’s. Sure that could change, and I keep my data off-device in formats that would allow me to convert and go elsewhere if need be. Beyond that, I’m not going to lose sleep over the fact that I’m stuck with one-way upgrades of iOS. It’s one of those arguments that I can agree with ideologically, but in terms of practicality and getting things done, it doesn’t negatively effect me.
I'm not a mainframe guy and don't know much but from what I've read over the years they're pretty good at being able to handle similar situations. Can they not also handle rollbacks?
"Everyone knows that vi vi vi is the number of the beast" -- Richard Stallman
I agree the ability to change your mind about a software update is important. Recently I hated an IOS RELEASE AND WAS AMAZED THAT A FACTORY RESTORE WOULD NOT TAKE ME BACK.
From "iOS Security February 2014 (http://images.apple.com/ipad/business/docs/iOS_Security_Feb14.pdf)", one good reason not to allow OS downgrades:
"If downgrades were possible, an attacker who gains possession of a device could install an older version of iOS and exploit a vulnerability that’s been fixed in the newer version."