Oliver Steele

Update: I got my facts wrong, to an extent that makes my thesis wrong too. See the comment that begins “Well Vista dropped dos and win16”.

In software, an internally disruptive change is one where backwards compatibility is a major concern for the developing organization at the architectural level (and not just a matter of larger matrices in QA). It’s disruptive because it takes a drastic change to the architecture to cause this degree of disruption; it’s internally disruptive because, when compatibility is a requirement, the effects of the disruption are moved inside the development organization.