Note that this specifically talks about proprietary platforms. Locally-run proprietary freeware has entirely different potential issues, mostly centered around the developer stopping to maintain it. Locally-run F/OSS has similar issues, actually, but lessened by the fact that someone might later pick up the project and continue it.
Admittedly, platforms are very common these days because the web is an easily accessible cross-platform GUI toolkit SaaS is more easily monetized.
True, although that has happened with F/OSS as well (like with xz or the couple times people put Bitcoin miners into npm packages). In either case it’s a lot less likely than the software simply ceasing to be supported, becoming gradually incompatible with newer systems, and rotting away.
Except, of course, that I can pick up the decade-old corpse of an open source project and try to make it work on modern systems, despite how painful it is to try to get a JavaFX application written for Java 7 and an ancient version of Gradle to even compile with a recent JDK. (And then finally give up and just run the last Windows release with its bundled JRE in Wine. But in theory I could’ve made it work!)
Note that this specifically talks about proprietary platforms. Locally-run proprietary freeware has entirely different potential issues, mostly centered around the developer stopping to maintain it. Locally-run F/OSS has similar issues, actually, but lessened by the fact that someone might later pick up the project and continue it.
Admittedly, platforms are very common these days because
the web is an easily accessible cross-platform GUI toolkitSaaS is more easily monetized.The issue is they can install spyware after selling their company and if you have automatic updates you’ll get that too
True, although that has happened with F/OSS as well (like with xz or the couple times people put Bitcoin miners into npm packages). In either case it’s a lot less likely than the software simply ceasing to be supported, becoming gradually incompatible with newer systems, and rotting away.
Except, of course, that I can pick up the decade-old corpse of an open source project and try to make it work on modern systems, despite how painful it is to try to get a JavaFX application written for Java 7 and an ancient version of Gradle to even compile with a recent JDK. (And then finally give up and just run the last Windows release with its bundled JRE in Wine. But in theory I could’ve made it work!)