MorkTheFiddle wrote:Cainntear wrote: It'll probably be possible to get it working on Linux until the fall of civilisation though.
LWT depends on mySql and EasyPHPDevServer. Any change in them could affect the functioning of LWT, and, in fact, has already done so. And the developer himself once noted that he could not keep up with all the various distributions of Linux, so there is another potential break. In my humble opinion, without a developer to maintain LWT, sooner or later it will break permanently.
I may be misunderstanding your comment and if that's the case, I apologize, but it shouldn't be an issue for a long time.
To clarify: LWT is a PHP script that makes use of a SQL database. All you need is a web server that supports PHP and a compatible SQL database manager. EasyPHP is one such package, others are
XAMPP (which I'm using locally by old habit) and
Wamp. You can also install the software as standalone if you want to. Them updating shouldn't affect LWT. If one of them should make the unlikely decision to, say, drop PHP from their package - you can just switch to another.
The concern is the development of PHP. For example: in 2013, PHP 5.5 deprecated and replaced the old MySQL extension due to security issues. Then in 2016, with PHP 7, they removed it completely - forcing people to switch to the MySQLi (which LWT is using) or PDO_MySQL if they wanted to continue with new PHP releases. If they decide to do a similar change in the future and remove a feature that LWT is using, then you can always download
an old version of PHP and manually install it. Also note that EasyPHP Devserver 17 seemingly still comes with PHP 5.3 as an option, despite its End of Life being 14 August 2014. The latest PHP version (7.4) has an EoL in 2022.
With this said, maybe the loss of LWT will create incentive to create something new. The challenge is that there's plenty of competition (Readlang and LingQ) while LWT still works. It was a similar situation when
YNAB went from being standalone to becoming SaaS. A handful of new competitors started but people are reluctant to make the switch since the old version still runs, despite being abandoned.
Edit: I forgot that LWT is making use of JavaScript and jQuery, so there's a potential issue if they remove a used feature from future browsers. You can always use an old browser version, but maybe that's becoming a bit ridiculous just to continue to use an old software. Rather do an attempt at a crowdfunding campaign to release a new alternative to LWT.