For example, recently the Raspberry Pi Linux build changed the way the IP address configuration is done. This rendered, and continues to render, thousands of helpful online documents to the gutter. I don't know why the change was made, and it took quite some time to find any documentation related to it. I am sure whoever was behind it was well meaning, but failed to understand the wider implications.
You are assuming that the change was done for the change's sake and not for some other reason (which you are ignorant about by your own admission). I am not sure what you are referring to, though. I was setting up a Raspberry Pi 3 with the latest Raspbian last week and the IP address is still set up in /etc/network/interfaces, as it always was in Debian.
If every change had to consider the tons of books and documentation written on the subject that would become obsolete, we would never get anywhere. That's a ridiculous proposition. The right way is to press the vendors to actually update the documentation, not to forbid making changes!
In the case of free products, like Debian Linux (which Raspbian on RasPi is derived from) - it is up to everyone to contribute. People are forgetting that many (not all) of these projects are running only thanks to unpaid labor of volunteers who keep the distributions going and write the documentation.
Not everyone is a programmer, but most people can read and write. If you don't like some documentation being out of date, what prevents you from spending a few hours and updating the relevant bit? That will certainly not ruin you and others, who come after you, will be grateful for saving their time. If you don't want to do that, go to a commercial vendor like RedHat or SuSE, get a support contract and then you can unload on them should something be out of date or not working to your satisfaction - because you are paying for it. But whining about a free product that others prepared for you is really cheap.
First, to be clear, I wasn't whining. I was making a statement of fact. The half life of Linux-based software documentation is small when compared to that of other OSes.
If I make something for someone else to use then I document it for their use. Without that documentation, the job is not finished. If you think you are a programmer making stuff for others to use, and documentation does not apply to you, then you are not a programmer, paid or not. You may think you are shit hot at coding something up, but if you don't communicate what you've done or how to use it, then no, you are not a programmer, you are a bedroom tinkerer. If you don't want to document and justify your changes, then you should think very carefully about the impact of your actions before distributing your work and deprecating older works.
Regarding the RPi's change of the way the network interface is used, I refer you to this.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=111709Now, look up on google "static IP address Raspberry Pi" and practically everything points you to methods that no longer work, nine months after the new "feature" was added. I am giving this as an example of where you need those special Penguin skills, which include being very patient, accepting that things break unexpectedly, enjoy tinkering, and having plenty of time on your hands, and own industrial scale rabbit hole digging equipment.
Yes, you need those skills with other OSes, but last time I checked, irritating as Windows is (and God do I hate the way that UI is continually messed with) some well meaning fairy godmother doesn't come over and mess about randomly with fundamental configuration files without making it very clear. After all, why would anyone want a dhcp client messing with an explictly defined static IP address setting exactly?
So I am not complaining, I am simply stating that you don't really get something for nothing when you buy Linux, the cost is your time honing your Penguin skills. It's also one reason why Linux admins currently demand the highest salaries, because of their special Penguin skills. The OS might be cheap but the people managing them, not so much.