flawed concepts

Ian Holsman asks : "should OSS care about the late majority/laggards"?
At least the PHP project seems to answer "NO", and I have to admit I'm not too happy about that.

In my opinion, the question whether an OSS project should care about the late majority is a piece of whether the project will be seen as "ready for the enterprise", as large enterprises tend to the late adopter side.
However, the issue is not only about late adoption, it is also very much about systems that stay in service for quite a long time and where large changes to the infrastructure are avoided whereever possible. This is also a characteristic of "enterprise" deployments.

Thus, not offering long-term support as an OSS project could influence enterprises to opt for other software infrastructure. Furthermore, I believe the argument that independent consultancies could provide long-term support even when the main project has abandoned the software version in question is somewhat moot, as many will have the feeling that independent consultants will not be able to offer the same quality as the original project.