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One could simply cease providing support for product A, re-name it to product B, and charge for a new license with same effect.
by daviddever23box 4y ago
One could simply cease providing support for product A, re-name it to product B, and charge for a new license with same effect.
- b112 4y agoIf the codebase is mostly the same, a court would laugh in your face. But regardless of that, discovering legal trickery to weasel out of a deal is morally bankrupt.
- infecto 4y agoInteresting because this is how most other companies have handled it and I have yet to see any big news on court cases for it.
- b112 4y agoI have seen a lot of software with lifetime licenses, and if you actually look at the license, it lays out the scope. (EG, most licenses lay out... "v1.x updates only") I have not seen companies saying "Lifetime updates to Bord, forever!"... then calling a same product "Zdft" to get out of updates.
- infecto 4y agoInteresting. Would you say this is this has been the case for both small and large companies? Genuinely curious. I do wonder though how sympathetic a court would be to the plantiff if mIRC was brought to court? How enforceable is a lifetime contract? No answer needed just my own curiosity.
- b112 4y agoI have no idea why a lifetime contract wouldn't be. It happens all the time (lifetime warranty is an example), just as CN Rail discovered. In 1906, the Canadian National Railway Company signed a contract for upkeep of a bridge, in perpetuity(forever): https://www.ontariocourts.ca/decisions/2018/2018ONCA0517.pdf https://www.ontariocourts.ca/decisions/2018/2018ONCA0517.pdf When CN refused to reopen the Bridge for vehicles, Thunder Bay brought an application for a determination of its contractual rights under the 1906 Agreement. Two provisions of this Agreement are central to this appeal: s. 3, in which Grand Trunk Pacific agreed to give Fort William “the perpetual right to cross the said bridge for street railway, vehicle and foot traffic”; and s. 5, in which CN agreed to “maintain the bridge in perpetuity”. If a mega-corp can't weasel out of a deal to maintain a bridge forever, I don't see how a software company can weasel out either. CN tried all sorts of arguments, too, which essentially boiled down to "things are different now!", and "how could we have known!", which of course are meaningless arguments.
- infecto 4y agoThanks for the informative reply!
- Macha 4y agoTwo examples I've personally hit: Swiftkey to Swiftkey X. Doubletwist to CloudPlayer.
- b112 4y agoAll I'll say, is if the license wasn't clear re: lifetime limits, they could be sued.
- denton-scratch 4y agoYou often see lifetime warranties. I treat them all as marketing puff; hardly any companies that exist now existed when I was a kid, and vice-versa. You can't fulfil a lifetime warranty unless you are going to live longer than I do, and companies generally don't live longer than people. Especially if they hand out promises that last 80 years and more.
- mrguyorama 4y agoIf you read the Warranty they almost always make it nice and clear that those are "Lifetime (of the product) warranty".
- denton-scratch 4y ago> "Lifetime (of the product) warranty" Really? Given that the product has died when the warranty is called in, that suggests that any such warranty is worthless. "This gadget is guaranteed to keep working until it stops working."
- Tomte 4y agoOne would lose all name recognition. mIRC is a household name in IRC circles.
- denton-scratch 4y agoBut it's not a support contract. It's a licence to use the software, isn't it? You can't reasonably revoke a lifetime licence-to-use; there's no cost to letting people go on using it. There's also no marginal cost in allowing lifetime licensees to download updates.