News and Reviews > Mini-Reviews by Members
GS-Base Mini-Review
oblivion:
I have mixed feelings about all this. On the one hand, I agree that forcing paid upgrades by stealth is, on the face of it, a sharp practice. However, expecting the supplier to keep downloadable copies of your specific version of the installation media for free, indefinitely, just in case you might have the need to reinstall (and bear in mind that GS-Base can be installed portably and therefore reinstalled just by copying it on from your backup, what do you mean you don't have a backup? ;)) seems a touch unreasonable too.
And while it's certainly the case that a $10 / year "subscription" isn't exactly free, even ignoring the fact that you only have to pay it if you want new functionality after the first year or you didn't keep backups, for a piece of software that can do what this does for the price remains pretty remarkable. The developer is responsive to requests for new features and bugfixes, to a greater extent than most commercial software I've ever encountered.
I grant you might not see the appeal over -- say -- various spreadsheet programs that pretend some database functionality but this is the only (reasonably) affordable and user-friendly "proper" database program I've seen in a very long time. (I've used Lotus Approach for a long, long time but I can't make it run on a 64-bit PC -- there are things I miss about Approach but GS-Base ticks more boxes than anything else I've tried.) So I'm consequently inclined to be a little more forgiving than I might if it were operating in a more crowded arena :)
wraith808:
If it were open knowledge, i.e. clearly stated that he doesn't keep backups at the time of purchase, and/or an advisement to keep the installer, I might agree with your point. But there is neither of those, and the first time I encountered it, I wanted to install it and was not in a position to get to my backup of the software. That left a bad taste.
On top of that, many, many companies do keep the older versions for just that reason. Directory Opus. Zeus. RegexBuddy. TopStyle. And many more.
IMO, you either:
1) Notify the user.
2) Keep the downloads available (a very low maintenance cost, actually)
or
3) Don't engage in such practices.
It has little to nothing to do with the value, nor the quality of the program. I agree with you on these points. But neither excuse the practice.
Citadel5:
Hi,
For what it's worth, my two cents to this discussion:
1. The website and every other docs clearly state that you can log on to the download page to download the latest versions for 12 months for free. And it's clear that the page always displays the latest versions only.
(I do what I can to educate users that the license doesn't "expire".)
2. Almost all old versions are still on the website. For the full versions, it's sufficient to e-mail the support, which (un)surprisingly some users do.
Trial versions dating back I guess 10 years are free downloads all the time.
3. It's ca 2MB. Not 2TB...
4. Hope that the respective modifications to the download page will be implemented rather sooner than later. It was requested by other users and it's surely is going to be helpful.
5. IMHO captcha is easy(?). An easier registration method means verifying (addresses, IPs) 10-20 spambot submissions a day. (Unless this can be done automatically for the phpBB forum.)
Thanks,
Citadel5
wraith808:
Hi,
For what it's worth, my two cents to this discussion:
1. The website and every other docs clearly state that you can log on to the download page to download the latest versions for 12 months for free. And it's clear that the page always displays the latest versions only.
(I do what I can to educate users that the license doesn't "expire".)
2. Almost all old versions are still on the website. For the full versions, it's sufficient to e-mail the support, which (un)surprisingly some users do.
Trial versions dating back I guess 10 years are free downloads all the time.
3. It's ca 2MB. Not 2TB...
4. Hope that the respective modifications to the download page will be implemented rather sooner than later. It was requested by other users and it's surely is going to be helpful.
5. IMHO captcha is easy(?). An easier registration method means verifying (addresses, IPs) 10-20 spambot submissions a day. (Unless this can be done automatically for the phpBB forum.)
Thanks,
Citadel5
-Citadel5 (August 02, 2016, 08:14 PM)
--- End quote ---
Thanks for the response.
1) Can you point me to that clear explanation that it will only be the latest? If you have the others stored on your servers, it would seem that you could point the download link for those to the the registered version. Perhaps that is your upgrade to your download screen you mention in point (4)? I'm not sure, as what that includes isn't quite clear? All others that I've seen that do that either (a) point to your last registered version or (b) point to a page with the older versions linked. And that leads into...
2) Do you say anywhere that you can contact for the registered version? I didn't see that.
5) Captcha is easy when the captcha used is readable. As many have said, yours isn't, especially if you have any sort of color blindness.
To whit:
Looking back at your site, and your pages, you might want to make what you're saying a bit clearer. It's not currently. There's nothing wrong with your software- as you can see from my review, I think the upgrade policies are more than fair, and the software is very good for what you're getting and worth the money.
My problem is the fact that (a) what you're saying above isn't documented anywhere, and (b) that there would even be such an obscure method for receiving the version you paid for. Many people (including myself) aren't going to try to find out how to get the version. Especially if you, as I do, save your installer. In my case, I did a clean install, and thought I could just download it. I was able to get to my version as it's backed up. But finding that out? It left a bitter taste in my mouth- and one I didn't communicate before now. Many people are going to do the same, so you might take this in the spirit it is intended- a place that you can make better changes so things are more clear to your customers.
Just food for thought.
IainB:
@wraith808: I reckon you're flogging a dead horse.
I mean, for how long has Citadel5 been selling the GS-Base product? How dumb could they be?
What you are saying can't be news to them. If any salient information about pricing/licencing etc. of the sort you are suggesting has been omitted/obfuscated or whatever on the website or wherever in their documentation, then it would seem to be highly unlikely that, by this late stage, it will have been done or left there by accident. That probably goes double for the CAPTCHA.
It's too clever by half.
I usually find that the least frustrating thing to do when faced with such annoyances is simply to forget it, vote with one's feet/wallet, and focus on something more useful where one doesn't have to expend one's energies in trying to effect some change(s) to the immovable - which is kinda what I was suggesting above regarding the true price of such things.
As I said above: This arguably has a lot to do with ethics in business. (It's also about trust.)
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