> Are the same people making a stink about Microsoft doing this also making a stink about Apple doing practically the same every time they release a new MacOS version?
Yes, some of them. Though of course there are people who make stink about Microsoft and not Apple because they don't use Apple products.
> How long should hardware be supported? Indefinitely?
Yes. Or at least approximately as long as Linux does. Especially since it's no longer the 80s/90s and we're not seeing anywhere near the kind of rapid and significant hardware improvements the PC industry saw back then [1]. Microsoft is an extremely successful company with 221,000 full time employees, they have the capacity to do this.
[1] Over the last couple decades, I've declined scheduled PC refreshes a couple times after checking the specs, because the "refreshed" PC was literally almost the same as my current one (like a small CPU bump and a bit more memory). For completely selfish reasons it made more sense to just keep the old one and maybe buy some more RAM than go through the trouble of migrating my stuff.
Yes, some of them. Though of course there are people who make stink about Microsoft and not Apple because they don't use Apple products.
> How long should hardware be supported? Indefinitely?
Yes. Or at least approximately as long as Linux does. Especially since it's no longer the 80s/90s and we're not seeing anywhere near the kind of rapid and significant hardware improvements the PC industry saw back then [1]. Microsoft is an extremely successful company with 221,000 full time employees, they have the capacity to do this.
[1] Over the last couple decades, I've declined scheduled PC refreshes a couple times after checking the specs, because the "refreshed" PC was literally almost the same as my current one (like a small CPU bump and a bit more memory). For completely selfish reasons it made more sense to just keep the old one and maybe buy some more RAM than go through the trouble of migrating my stuff.