Comment Re:How I accidentally solved this problem (Score 1) 257
And sadly, it was only an accident.
I used to work for a company that still maintains a VB3 system. We also used a licensed rich-text-format textbox control for reporting. We had to buy the company to get the source code for it when it went out of business, just in case it had a critical bug and we needed it fixed.
Proprietary platforms will, as you say, only stick around by dint of luck. Free software is the only software you're guaranteed to have stick around.
As for hardware, buy redundant units.