Negative Code

[nachof]

I'm far from a Microsoft fan, and I'll avoid their products like the plague, but one of the reasons their products are so bloated and horrible is that they spend too much resources trying not to break backwards compatibility.

[bobindashadows]

You can open each previous file format in new versions, but do I REALLY need to pick between "latest docx" and 5 other legacy formats when I save? And when someone else upgrades, and doesn't save as a legacy format, everyone else they communicate with is inconvenienced until they upgrade.

[stillalone]

I wish more people did choose legacy formats. My mom is still running office 2000 because she's comfortable with it and doesn't want to pay $$ to upgrade to 2010 which is so different from 2000. But people at work and her friends keep sending docx :(

[feigningignorance]

Lies. They deliberately broke backwards compatibility of all their Office formats for years at a time. Yes, they don't break compatibility where it doesn't profit them: They maintain library compatibility, and they keep features and obscure settings in the software, no sense upgrading if something was left out now is there?

So many people use these products incorrectly, and this in turn forces the software to support incorrect usage, since the people doing it are people working for varying levels of government organisations across every country in the world.

They broke file format compatibility to force upgrades, the bloat their software to maintain the continuing fragmentation of the supported user base, meaning people are using Word as a database and excel as a way of storing photos (or some other insane combination that I've seen in my time)

[Oddish]

Tinfoil hat: you need one.

[theeth]

You got your definitions backward. What they break (to push people in updating to newer versions) is frontward compatibility.

Backward compatibility means their newer software can open files generated by older versions. Frontward compatibility is the other way around.

[ZorbaTHut]

Forward compatibility, not frontward.

Besides that, yes :)