Let's Hope GNU Makes it to 100
THE world's civilisation moves fast and software moves notoriously fast (that's bad for the environment, but it helps sell more stuff). It makes it hard to adopt and use programs that were published as recently as one decade ago.
GNU is 40 today and our site began its 'second life' this week, complete with the conversion of most of its material to static HTML. We try to think and look ahead in terms like decades, not just years, and stubbornly staying with WordPress would mean trouble ahead, for all sorts of reasons that we covered last weekend. Similarly, we think Linux embracing Rust was a mistake that would shorten the life of Linux.
GNU uses a lot of C, Bash, and Perl. Those programs tend to age better than PHP stuff. They're not "apps" for mobile devices that last 2-3 years. They're coded to be cross-platform.
Can GNU still be in active use in 2083? Maybe. 60 years is like a light years in software terms. █