Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
Another 'Lifetime' license bites the dust
Hirudin:
Are there really programs out there that quit working after the license period has expired?
If you buy Quicken right now I'm pretty sure you're locked into their product line, but if you don't feel like buying their UPGRADED (everyone else is writing that in all caps, so I decided to as well) product you can still use their old version if I'm not mistaken.
If you create a document in Office2007 right now you can use it from now until the end of time (or the next Y2K-type bug/limitation pops up).
Carol Haynes:
[Carol]: Actually the one that pissed me off is FruityLoops. They SOLD lifetime updates and then changed the product name from FruityLoops to FruityLoops Professional and said it was anew product.
--- End quote ---
Josh is absolutely right: you gotta stay in business first in order to offer any license, whatever it is. But I would urge every developer and company not to offer any 'lifetime' option if you're not going to honor it. Remember, it was barely a year ago when Slysoft renamed AnyDVD as AnyDVD-HD, and then came back to us lifetime licensees to buy an entirely new "lifetime" license at full price, claiming that because AnyDVD-HD was an entirely different product with more features than AnyDVD, it required a new round of cash.
-zridling (December 12, 2008, 01:54 PM)
--- End quote ---
The reason I was so angry was that FruityLoops SOLD lifetime updates - they weren't included in the package price you had to buy a 'life time updates' product from them. THEN they moved the goal posts.
Life time updates is pretty meaningless - all a company has to do is to stop updating the product and sell a new product under a different name that uses the same underlying technology.
Basically when you buy software DON'T buy a lifetime updates package because it probably won't happen!
mwang:
I like the way EmEditor does this. It promised only minor updates (until the next major version bump), but in fact has never charged me anything for major updates (from v5.x to now v8.01).
mouser:
It promised only minor updates (until the next major version bump), but in fact has never charged me anything for major updates (from v5.x to now v8.01).
--- End quote ---
my mother has been trying to drill this idea into me for years -- it's amazing how good a piece of advice it is, but how hard it is to follow sometimes:
"under-promise, over-deliver"
mwb1100:
Are there really programs out there that quit working after the license period has expired?
-Hirudin (December 12, 2008, 05:54 PM)
--- End quote ---
Yes, there is software with that type of licensing. I think it is somewhat common in the 'enterprise' or server software marketplace, but it is quite rare in the consumer/individual software market. One bit of software that has this type of license is SlickEdit's "SlickEdit Core for Eclipse" (http://www.slickedit.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=162&Itemid=57). I'm a fan of SlickEdit's main editor product (which does not have this type of expiring license), but I could not bring myself to buy into the type of license they have on the Eclipse plug-in.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version