![]() Philosophically, the "abandonware" argument is one that goes beyond the legal sphere into the realm of artistic morality: it is the assertion that a company that refuses or is unable to profit from a work for which it has gained the legal rights, is immorally acting to the detriment of art if they choose to sit on the property and allow no access to it from the world at large. For example, 3D Realms used to offer all their old DOS titles (most notably Rise of the Triad) for sale from their website, and such they're very difficult to find on abandonware sites. Many abandonware websites maintain a semblance of good faith by refusing to allow download of any game still being offered for sale. Websites such as Abandonia exist to allow people to play once again games that they used to have for their old 386 but have now slipped into the realms of abandonware. Welcome to the wasteland of Abandonware, where the forgotten languish in technology hell, since they can't keep up. The program is now unsupported, there are no patches left to release, or they can't make any due to compatibility issues which mean even trying isn't feasible. Or maybe it's planned obsolescence if you're just patching your old software, you're not buying new stuff. Technology is too advanced, or maybe the developers just got bored. Sure, there's patches, clients, and other assorted whatnot, but over time, the developers just throw up their hands and say "forget this". ![]() ![]() Well, some programs don't take the aging process well. It happens to everything - DOS was taken out by its shiny new big sister, Windows, and Windows NT was taken out by Windows 2000, and from there NT's upgrade of XP, XP to Vista, and so on.
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