I'm not sure; that's part of the reason I was asking. I do think, however, that a 12 year timeline seems too long for any project. Usually people can't work effectively toward goals that far in the future. But maybe this contract is more of an extended support contract?
That still gives them between 6 months and 18 months (whenever the contract expires in 2019) to continue working on this project. They may even finish it during that timeframe. This is purely PR fluff.
I mean, I know you're suggesting the claim has no merit because the poster doesn't know what they're talking about; but you know, even if the poster were a genius with intimate knowledge of the project, a claim like this is bogus.
If somebody with a modicum of common sense and software experience says some software of this kind of complexity that they're working on "can" be good enough in 5 years that basically means: it's a herculean task, and they have no clue whatsoever as to how long it's actually going to take. Also, they probably don't really know what they're really trying to do, only general aims, not actually how they're achievable.
There's no way in hell anybody can plan something that novel and hugely complex, with that many people involved in an ecosystem that's constantly changing not to mention a business that's not known for its long term perseverance, with any kind of accuracy for 1 year. 5 years is a complete joke.
Who knows - it might happen. It might in just 1 year. Or maybe 50. Or more likely, never. But I cannot believe that estimate to have any kind of sane grounding.
The only way they're actually going to follow through on a schedule that long term is by giving up on scope and quality, which is to say - sure, something will be delivered, but perhaps nothing resembling today's expectations.
I'd counter that it's important to specify the time-frame you're talking about. For instance, would you say that they'll try to continue as a big Java user for the next 15 years?
When you stretch out the time-frame, your assertion sounds substantially less credible. At least to me.
This is not even that surprising. 12 yrs is nothing compared to the inhuman amount of time it would take to port it, and considering how much work into it in the first place(?).
No, it's not. Their position is (at least from their last status update): "we are trying to come up with a long term support methodology, and didn't find one yet". It takes them more than a year to design it. It doesn't sound reasonable to me.
I don't think a year is long enough though - especially for something that's unique and foundational. A complex product built using BigTable, for example, may need more than a year to migrate to something else.
Committing to 7 years is a big step! Apple does't commit to its support timeline at all and seems to average around 6 years, so this is more firm and also longer.
I would like to see Apple respond by committing to their timeframe but they won't.
11 months huh? That's barely anything for larger enterprise customers, about long enough to make it onto a project plan. Most enterprise software companies will provide support for 5-8 years.
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