Free as in Puppy
Do we really have to upgrade our web apps?
It's that time of year when the evenings draw in, we start eyeing up Christmas jumpers and I find myself running lots of major upgrades for my clients. I work with the excellent open source Laravel framework and each year a new major version is released in the first quarter.
Once a new version drops, the older of the 2 major versions the Laravel team support is retired and most importantly that means no more security fixes. If your app is based on that version you need to upgrade.
Whether or not you're using Laravel the principle applies. There will be a release cycle for the software you've built your app using and you'll need to keep up with it.
I'll be blunt, a major upgrade isn't a lot of fun
I'll be blunt, a major upgrade isn't a lot of fun. It costs money, doesn't appear to add any value and you'll also have to get involved with QA testing and potentially plan for a bit of down-time while it gets deployed.
Sadly, all too often for these reasons, keeping an app in support gets treated as though it's an optional extra or is avoided because of the perceived headaches a major upgrade will cause.
An industry trope describes open source software as 'free as in puppy, not as in beer'. It might not cost anything to acquire, but you're going to have to look after it.
Work with a developer who is proactive about maintaining your project
While we all hope that we never have to deal with a hacker compromising our application, imagine how much worse the consequences might be for your business if that happened because you weren't applying security patches.
So make sure you work with a developer who is proactive about maintaining your project. Ask them their approach to major upgrades and routine security patching. If they don't have a convincing answer it might be time to reconsider the engagement.
Oh, and good luck finding that Christmas jumper! 🎄