Software Bloat
Written by Rob | 12.08.09
How does a company legitimise charging a customer for regular improvements to software, after the need to upgrade has long since subsided?
By adding improvements nobody needs, that break backward compatibility.
This means that even those who don't need an upgrade are forced to anyway, simply to be able to exchange documents from say, the office to home, or to another office. It might mean an old operating system has to be upgraded in order to run a secure browser.
How come my flash player was perfectly able to display its content last year, but now I need an upgrade? I mean, how many additions to word have you actually used since....say.... word for windows version 1?
If most of what Microsoft offers is available out there for free, what is stopping everyone from changing? A huge corporate beast that is not going to let you stop feeding it, that's what. By tying necessary with unnecessary changes, you the customer ends up paying.
Comparison of Microsoft Windows minimum hardware requirements (for 32-bit versions). Windows version Processor Memory Hard disk Windows 95 25 MHz 4 MB ~50 MB Windows 98 66 MHz 16 MB ~200 MB Windows 2000 133 MHz 32 MB 650 MB Windows XP 233 MHz 64 MB 1.5 GB Windows Vista 800 MHz 512 MB 15 GB Windows 7 1 GHz 1 GB 16 GB Apple Inc.'s iTunes has been accused of being bloated as part of its efforts to turn it from a program that plays media to an e-commerce and advertising platform, with former PC World editor Ed Bott accusing the company of hypocrisy in its advertising attacks on Windows for similar practices.
Microsoft Windows has also been criticized as being bloated - with reference to Windows Vista, Microsoft engineer Eric Traut commented that "A lot of people think of Windows as this large, bloated operating system, and that's maybe a fair characterization, I have to admit.... [but] at its core, the kernel, and the components that make up the very core of the operating system, is actually pretty streamlined.". Former PC World editor Ed Bott has expressed skepticism, noting that almost every single operating system that Microsoft has ever sold had been criticized as 'bloated' when it first came out; even those now regarded as the exact opposite, such as MS-DOS.
And what's the alternative?
Technically, third party plugins are the solution. This means coding the main application in such a way that other developers can build additional software that hooks into the application via an API (application program interface).
Mozilla Firefox, Apache, and even Linux, all work on this principal. Why? Because it works.
Of course, Adobe and Steinberg have made superb plugin systems but being proprietary means you have to pay a license to use them. That's fine. In a lot of situations this really works. Unfortunately, (in my opinion) both these software houses, as well as supporting great API's, also suffer from bloat.
To me, it's largely an indication that a certain critical point in the bell curve of a product has been reached. Proof of this will be cheaper, leaner alternatives, making headway even against the financial might of these software houses.
It is also due to the increased number of functions placed in an application for marketing purposes (see bloatware), most of which are not needed by 95% of the users. Another major reason is human nature. People love to do their own thing. The more designers and programmers try to reinvent the wheel, the more effort it takes to put it all back together again. Modern operating systems have to deal with the myriad patches and variations made over the years to accommodate the major applications, which tend to hang on for years longer than expected. After numerous versions, a program's logic can become unbelievably convoluted. See Wirth's law and Freedman's law.
And the Winner is LAMP
Without a doubt this is the longest running piece of software that has maintained dominance without bloating, is Linux, Apache, Mysql, and Php.
From the beginning, this open source tour de force has been the backbone of the internet (modern human endeavours?), providing a streamlined web framework onto which any third party developer can modify or extend, that is not only free, but better than most, if not all, the commercial proprietary alternatives.
It may only be in the software world that this is applicable. I mean, the jury is still out on human nature. But co-operation and community kick competition's ass.... consistently. And competition's only chance has been to cheat, lie, and steal.
In a similar vein, here is a post I've written on my media blog www.DJTechbot.com, about parring down my live computer music setup to allow me focus on the areas of composition and performance.
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