[PATCH] deprecation

[Andy Green]

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Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> Andy Green wrote:
>> Yes indeed.  Also I know this is not a popular subject but in the same
>> vein looking ahead, we need a deprecation policy for product support.
> 
> I think what makes this subject unpopular is that deprecation isn't
> really a concept that applies here.

It wasn't that unpopular in the end.  And "to deprecate" someone is
different from the meaning of the word deployed here:

''In computer software standards and documentation, the term deprecation
is applied to software features that are superseded and should be
avoided. Although deprecated features remain in the current version,
their use may raise warning messages recommending alternate practices,
and deprecation may indicate that the feature will be removed in the
future. ...''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deprecation

>> If we can make sure that we help any community effort to take over
>> development on products that go out of our post-EOL support period
>> (whatever that is) this doesn't have to make a big problem.  Plus the
>> userspace is pretty much shared again reducing the hit.
> 
> Yes, end of support sounds much friendlier than "deprecation".
> And this is indeed how support should be phased from the hands of

You can call it "end of support" like I did, I don't mind.  But I hope
we can talk about things in a straightforward way to the customer, not
in grandstanding soliloquies to hide the unpleasant fact, but in terms
of a "deprecation policy" like most manufacturers would have, so
everyone knows where they stand rather than leaving people with wrong
expectations about what can be delivered in reality.  (Maybe we have
this already, but nobody mentioned it to me.)

At some point (I guess it varies widely by product category, for mobile
phones in general I think they dance to a fast beat) we won't be doing
stuff or support for any given product any more, it's just a fact found
everywhere else too.  No favours are done to anyone by dancing around it.

It's (mostly) FOSS so I would expect any active users who are interested
to take up maintainence on the related software before and after that as
I wrote originally, and we definitely should and no doubt will try to
help that along when the time comes.  So far as that goes they'll
certainly be in a way better position than holding a deprecated phone
from a closed vendor.

- -Andy
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