• ShiningWing@lemmygrad.ml
    191·
    11 months ago

    This comparison makes no sense, a motorcycle airbag vest doesn’t require any effort on the company’s part to keep working, but backporting security fixes absolutely does

    • Imnecomrade@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
      11·
      11 months ago

      At least from my interpretation, it’s a comparison solely from the end-user perspective, sarcastically dismissing the work of backporting security fixes, which I believe is still funny in its own right. But yes, the joke falls apart beyond this scope.

    • Arthur Besse@lemmy.mlOP
      12·
      11 months ago

      a motorcycle airbag vest doesn’t require any effort on the company’s part to keep working, but backporting security fixes absolutely does

      (Both are offensive, but) you’ve got this backwards: each unit of airbag costs additional money to manufacture, while each additional copy of a backported security update does not.

      • ShiningWing@lemmygrad.ml
        11·
        11 months ago

        Yes, each airbag vest costs money to produce, that’s why you pay for them, and why it’s shit that this company is charging an ongoing subscription that actively disables them when you miss a payment, because the vests they’ve already sent out don’t cost them any money to maintain

        And yes, each copy of a backported security update doesn’t cost meaningful amounts of money, but you’re not paying for just a copy of one update, you’re paying for an ongoing service that provides constant backports of security updates for loads of packages (and if you’re a personal user, as other people mentioned, you don’t even have to pay for that!), those backports are not free to maintain, companies charging for extended support that is nothing new, especially when they’re long term support distros targeting enterprise