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Devices and peripherals depreciate over the years and one need to calculate the average of depreciation period for a set of hardware. This factor competes with the rate of growth and development of new models of hardware devices. Combining these two criteria, my calculation roughly comes around 5 years and this is the period when the legacy harware be thrown off including its drivers.
balamurali balaji
MVP (ASP.NET, Visual C# & Device Application Development)
homepage: http://h1.ripway.com/bbmurali_2000
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There is no good time limit answer because there are different kinds of hardware. It would not be too upsetting if a $25 hand scanner from 1998 did not work with Windows Vista, but a $500 flat bed not working might be different. Manufacturers could use registered warrantees as a gauge. If very few people returned the warrantee card from their $25 scanner, it'd be a safe bet that driver development could be discontinued after a couple of OS versions maybe even just a single version. A lot of warrantee cards for the $500 scanner would indicate continued support may be required. Contacting registered owners to poll interest in new driver development would certainly seem to be a way to provide superior customer service as well. You never know, there may be interest in a driver subscription service as well in that after a few driver versions, continued development of them would require some kind of payment to fund. A company would know pretty quick then if there was interest in new drivers or not.
Roy Keeling
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And what's about a warranty?
If warranty is for 2 OS (ie, for example 1 year = 1 OS), then supporters must supply new drivers.
If there is the end of the last produced device warranty, then developers can stop to support this device.
Wormhole is the God divided by zero
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The cheaper the less is an economical answer for many manufacturers. A Heidelberg printing machine costing about as much as 3-5 cars would require a longer support than the usual Canon printer for under $60.-. But as with graphics cards, they should adopt the "unified driver" approach, which would breathe longer live into many of their products. Most devices are only slightly different from their predecessors like printers and mice and scanners. So it would not be so difficult to include them into such a driver set.
Also often the problem only arises when switching to a new OS or with a new SPx patch from the OS-Vendor. So the manufacturer would only need to update them old stuff only once every 2-3 years anyways 
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Before I upgrade any machine, I would first determine whether all the hardware I want to use is supported. If it isn't supported, then I have I decision to make, don't I. 
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I'd like drivers to be available for the average life of the device.
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With the notable exception of printers, almost every computer device is unsupportABLE in 4 or 5 years.
I just built a new PC - almost every technology in it is a breaking change from my previous PC. SATA, DDR-2 or 3, Core 2, PCI-E, DVI, etc. I could have saved an IDE DVD burner, but I was able to get SATA one for $25 new (with Lightscribe no less).
To be honest, I wish they obsoleted more stuff (the old software) so they could scrub more cobwebs out of the old krufty WIN32 API!
Actually, making a clean new OS and virtualizing the legacy API is my hope.
Dale Thompson
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While I agree with the previous mention of actively supporting until two OS releases into the future, I'd go a step further.
I see no reason why the company shouldn't open source the drive software after they no longer support it. After which the IT community can take care of itself as it deems necessary.
By this time the machine is usually not doing the job a brand new machine would do anyway so it would be unlikely to affect sales of new products. Such an act is more likely to affect only the less well off than anything else.
Cheers
Tom
Philosophy: The art of never getting beyond the concept of life.
Religion: Morality taking credit for the work of luck.
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I agree wholeheartedly. Now if only the people making the decisions were reading this....
Cheers,
Vikram.
Zeppelin's law: In any Soapbox discussion involving Stan Shannon, the probability of the term "leftist" or "Marxist" appearing approaches 1 monotonically.
Harris' addendum: I think you meant "monotonously".
Martin's second addendum: Jeffersonian... I think that should at least get a mention.
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TClarke wrote: I see no reason why the company shouldn't open source the drive software after they no longer support it.
Sometimes it could reveal manufacturers secrets about hardware design, which they are trying to hide from competition. This is one of the reasons you can't get documentation for some products if you are not their partner. Take NVIDIA for example.
Mostly, when you see programmers, they aren't doing anything. One of the attractive things about programmers is that you cannot tell whether or not they are working simply by looking at them. Very often they're sitting there seemingly drinking coffee and gossiping, or just staring into space. What the programmer is trying to do is get a handle on all the individual and unrelated ideas that are scampering around in his head. (Charles M Strauss)
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Mladen Jankovic wrote: Sometimes it could reveal manufacturers secrets about hardware design
On some products, fair enough and for those secrets to be kept I have no objection what so ever. However, I would say that for most hardware, two operating systems down the road is plenty of time for their secrets to be made obsolete, in terms of front line product capabilities.
There may be issues with the executive not wishing to remove assets from the balance sheets but how much is an unsupported outdated product actually worth?
There is another issue I can see being probably more on the minds of the companies in question and that comes down to the difficulties even the biggest players have in writing stable drivers. Just ask Microsoft how many drivers have made their OS look bad because they've destabilised their system through no fault of there own. These hardware companies don't want non quality controlled third parties jeopardising their hard won reputations. This, I can accept. However, considering, the companies can insist on certain statements of exemption having to accompany any open source material associated with their products they can take a fair amount of comfort from the fact that it's a great deal easier to adapt a driver to a different, but more likely very similar system, than it is to write one from scratch or to add functionality or even to tune a currently used one.
There is also the issue that the two types of customer are probably less likely to interact.
Cheers
Tom
Philosophy: The art of never getting beyond the concept of life.
Religion: Morality taking credit for the work of luck.
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Every word. But companies do not see an interest in supporting their HW so far back. I think (and hope) this might change in the future
Natza Mitzi
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If the companies have "secrets" they want to maintain then they should continue to provide driver updates. Once the secrets are obsolete then open source it.
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Very good idea, indeed.
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler.
-- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong.
-- Iain Clarke
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When I saw the question in the Insider, my first thought was, "Until version N + 2 of the OS is released", where N is the current version.
Example: You released a hardware device in 2003, when current OS was Win XP. Give drivers for XP, and the next OS, in this case, Vista. When Vienna comes out, you can stop supporting your product.
Cheers,
Vikram.
Zeppelin's law: In any Soapbox discussion involving Stan Shannon, the probability of the term "leftist" or "Marxist" appearing approaches 1 monotonically.
Harris' addendum: I think you meant "monotonously".
Martin's second addendum: Jeffersonian... I think that should at least get a mention.
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote: "Until version N + 2 of the OS is released"
That's a great answer. Not time based, but version based. It would give consumers something reasonable to expect, anyhow. Anything beyond N+2 would be a crap-shoot, but it would be a known crap-shoot.
As long as the definition of "version" is clearly understood, of course.
Gary
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Yeah, between the service packs, Release 2 (e.g. Windows Server 2003R2), and other complicated ways of saying "we're not quite there... yet... but this will still break your drivers", its hard to say sometimes what the next supportable version is.
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This was also my first thought
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote: When I saw the question in the Insider, my first thought was, "Until version N + 2 of the OS is released", where N is the current version.
Example: You released a hardware device in 2003, when current OS was Win XP. Give drivers for XP, and the next OS, in this case, Vista. When Vienna comes out, you can stop supporting your product.
What you are saying is that I can have a good printer that I may have paid $1000 for and it still works. Now that a new OS is out I should throw the printer away because the new OS doesn't support the printer. If that's the way a lot of business work then I can see why prices are going higher and higher. It used to be you used something until it didn't work or couldn't do the job not because someone made sure that it didn't work. I'm not suggesting a dot matrix printer from the early 80's however something in a 10 year time period wouldn't be unreasonable as an OS can come and go in versions in 3 to 5 years, a new printer purchased when one version was ending, the life of another version 1.5 to 2 years then the next version comes out so my printer is now out of date after 2 years and they still sell it. Not good business.
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c. w.smith wrote: What you are saying is that I can have a good printer that I may have paid $1000 for and it still works. Now that a new OS is out I should throw the printer away because the new OS doesn't support the printer.
Did you read the part about N + 2?
Also, I'm not advocating that hardware makers make absolutely sure their products don't work with newer OSes - whatever gave you that idea?
Cheers,
Vikram.
Zeppelin's law: In any Soapbox discussion involving Stan Shannon, the probability of the term "leftist" or "Marxist" appearing approaches 1 monotonically.
Harris' addendum: I think you meant "monotonously".
Martin's second addendum: Jeffersonian... I think that should at least get a mention.
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Example: You released a hardware device in 2003, when current OS was Win XP. Give drivers for XP, and the next OS, in this case, Vista. When Vienna comes out, you can stop supporting your product.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That part
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You're going round and round in circles. 
I said the OS after the next. Assuming this hypothetical product was released in 2003, support will only stop when Vienna is released (2010, at the earliest). Seven years not good for you?
Cheers,
Vikram.
Zeppelin's law: In any Soapbox discussion involving Stan Shannon, the probability of the term "leftist" or "Marxist" appearing approaches 1 monotonically.
Harris' addendum: I think you meant "monotonously".
Martin's second addendum: Jeffersonian... I think that should at least get a mention.
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Vikram A Punathambekar wrote: You're going round and round in circles.
I said the OS after the next. Assuming this hypothetical product was released in 2003, support will only stop when Vienna is released (2010, at the earliest). Seven years not good for you?
You’re going round in circles too; you want me to see your point however you are refusing to see mine.
My television was purchased in 1994, this is 2008 and it has a clear beautiful picture that is now 13 years old going on 14, longer than your seven years. I get to watch all of the newest shows, it allows me to hook to cable, play DVD's, and I have a home theatre system on it. Now, when cable changes to sending only High Def I will be forced to buy a new television however until then I can do everything I want except watch high def. The television is hardware and the shows are all software not quite the same thing as a computer however… my point is that throwing away something that works and all that is needed is a driver is silly and I don’t want someone dictating to me that I have to upgrade on their terms. There are programs that need the latest and greatest software to run but I can’t run it on my computer because mine is a year old and yes that is my complaint. You are saying seven years and that isn’t real life, real life is that they are killing our hardware in 1to 3 years as a rule sometimes pushing 5 on the outside, not the 7 you are hypothetically saying. So no, 7 years isn’t good enough. Gas prices are going through the roof, house prices are coming down but banks won’t loan money to most people because of the downward trend and yet we are being asked to pay more and more often. I work like most people; I’m not independently wealthy so I can’t just drop a bundle on a new computer or printer on a whim. If you can afford to go out whenever you need to and purchase a new piece of hardware because you can’t run the software that you just upgraded to and your system is maybe 6 months old and it doesn’t work then good for you. This is where I stop…
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Running in circles is indeed not very productive. To me it appears that you are both missing one important issue and that is price. Products come in 4 different flavors: Those that are expensive to produce and cost a lot. Those that are expensive to produce and cost only little. Those that are cheap to produce and cost a lot and finally those that cost a little and sell for little. In other words - it all amounts to contribution margin. Products that have a high contribution margin can afford a longer support period than those that haven't. It is that simple. Anything else is either usury [in lack of a better word] or philantropy, depending on one's point of view.
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c. w.smith wrote: It used to be you used something until it didn't work or couldn't do the job
With this in mind, you would be okay because you would still be running the previous version of the OS along with the dot matrix printer. Am I missing something?
Gary
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