[username223]

> half-assing SemVer, disregarding compatibility as a goal...

Like Chrome and Firefox, which toss out something-or-other every few months, call it a "major version," and force-update users by default? Or Windows and Mac OS, which by default offer some kind of "udpate now or remind me in 30 minutes" dialog for both backward-compatible and breaking changes? It's all just complete disdain for users.

[lotyrin]

Oh, certainly. I was thinking we were speaking developer experience within the realm of building/hosting network services, not so much end-user experience for client software.

That space is still a special hell for lots of reasons. Auto updaters that steal your features away being quite inexcusable but yet also not chief among them for most users.

It seems it still takes a software engineer to work the average client OS and not get it infected with crap. Maybe the average child can operate a shared walled-garden device without exposing their family's sensitive documents to untold numbers of developers of third party software on accident (or on purpose, yay Minecraft Mods!), but that's certainly not true of general computing devices.

Lots of paid (or ad-bloated) software that's lower quality than free alternatives but with cash to spend on a marketing budget, and that's not a high bar given that generally FOSS for end-users performing day-to-day tasks on client devices is still really sad.

[xorcist]

I've had luck with a stock Ubuntu install for the parents on both sides of the family. I set it up some eight years ago, installed printers and such, set it to auto update, and help them run the LTS uprgrade every other christmas. YMMV of course, and neither run minecraft mods or install crap from the Internet as they are basic web/office/audacity(!) users.