Total Commander

I was thinking of calling this post 'The Death of Christian Ghisler', but thought that that might be a little too confronting.
But it's a way of raising the concern of our dependence, love him though we do, on Ghisler, Christian, Esq.
It comes from my concern in the programming world of the authentication routines that 'phone home' to a program's publisher so that the files register properly and allow the program to run. I worry what will happen when the company fails, becomes insolvent, goes under, or when it's taken over and The Suits examine the package and deem it unworthy. What becomes of a re-installation then?
And while I acknowledge that Christian's TC doesn't work that way, I wonder what will happen to TC's development should he give it all away - for whatever reason.
Is the code placed in escrow, is there an understudy writing with Christian, how much should we invest in TC should it reach a dead-end?
We're not unique, we TC devotees, I know, but it's a consideration, IMHO.

Total Commander does no phone home, so it will work forever even if there aren't any more updates. The source code is also safely stored in a (very impressive) bank locker of a big Swiss bank.

Christian,
I assume you go there every day with your laptop to program?

Roman

No, I only bring a CD every few months, mostly after a new release.

It's a few years since we've addressed this topic.
I trust you are well, Author Ghisler?

Anything further that we should know?

Best wishes.

Yes, I'm well. We are a 2 person company, so my coworker (who is actually my brother) could take over when I die.

ghisler(Author) wrote: ↑2020-03-27, 09:26 UTC when I die.

You better don't.

TC is one of the most well written and stable pieces of software out there: it is incredibly stable, consistent, transparent, can be customized/extended/fine-tuned in every single way, it's also compatible/backwards compatible with every single update, I could go on and on. There is nothing you can't do. It's impressive how a single person could think of such a program that will not fail in future even after twenty years. This is how one should make software: way better, than big names companies (microsoft, adobe) do.

If not Microsoft breaking compatibility with previous versions with every update, TC could work and be stable forever.

If something happens to you, it will be a loss for humanity.

Can you program your clone and make him as good as TC is, so it will exist forever and update TC instead of you?