Software Development Processes That Move Too Fast and Break Things
THE traditional Drupal site of ours is no more. All the pages were converted to static HTML and the old databases permanently archived. Running the old Drupal site is hard because of versions of MySQL, the underlying storage engine (long abandoned, stale), the version of PHP (deprecated functions), and so on.
The problem isn't limited to complex relational databases and notorious PHP. Python 2 is a reminder of the same issues (moving to Python 3 means extensive code rewrites may be needed; Python 2 is being phased out already). For the sake of software freedom, standards are essential. For standards to be followed simplicity is essential. And keeping things simple means stable APIs and no earth-shattering changes. Software developers need to slow down. It should be feasible to run or use (or maintain) the same software for 20+ years.
Get ready for KDE/Plasma to get less stable again because of Qt6. Need it be mentioned that Qt is proprietary software now? █