Had it been open source, they could have just fixed the software instead

Fixing the upstream would not have updated it on the millions of machines running it, which is what they wanted to not break.

> Fixing the upstream would not have updated it on the millions of machines running it,

It was a very different world back then. You couldn't even assume a dial-up connection.

Nowadays, the software would have been automatically updated for 99% of the machines running it, whether they wanted that update or not.

Hah. Debian will happily keep shipping libraries years out of date. Then complain that you’re holding them back when they finally wake up and update sid to a bleeding edge release.

I feel like you have no idea on how debian works, but have read an article 25 years ago and are angry about that ever since.

The proof is this totally OT comment that doesn't even make any sense :)