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NTP's Fate Hinges On "Father Time"
Esther Schindler writes In April, one of the open source code movement's first and biggest success stories, the Network Time Protocol, will reach a decision point, writes Charlie Babcock. At 30 years old, will NTP continue as the preeminent time synchronization system for Macs, Windows, and Linux computers and most servers on networks? Or will this protocol go into a decline marked by drastically slowed development, fewer bug fixes, and greater security risks for the computers that use it? The question hinges to a surprising degree on the personal finances of a 59-year-old technologist in Talent, Ore., named Harlan Stenn.
If people don't want megacorps making a "shit-tonne" of cash out of their work then they need to be forward thinking and put a clause in the licence to prevent this.
The software author has the power to control the licence. No one put a gun to their head and told them to release it free.
First of all, thank you for doing the work! However, if it is so hard to support 20 years old OSs then why are they still supported? Can't you use an old ntpd on an old OS? I run a couple of older UNIX systems from that period and in general I don't expect to be able to use the latest and greatest, but that's ok as long as older releases are still supported.