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> ... besides hosting downloads and support. Support can be an enormous time drain. This naturally depends on the software type, its quality and the compositi
by huhtenberg 4y ago
> ... besides hosting downloads and support.
Support can be an enormous time drain.
This naturally depends on the software type, its quality and the composition of its user base, but I've been on a receiving end of the support firehose for a software with a lot of "simpleton" users and it was a nightmare. This doesn't sound like something that would apply to the mIRC case, but it'd be one rationale for yanking lifetime licenses. You want support - you need to keep chipping in.
- hamburglar 4y agoI don’t know why he wouldn’t just let everyone’s lifetime license continue and just start to provide shitty support to those users if he can’t keep up. Reneging on the license itself is a clear violation of the terms, but “support” is vague and subjective enough that you can pretty much scale it down to nothing if you don’t mind having unhappy customers.
- franga2000 4y agoYes, that was exactly my point. Support is the only "costly" thing, so they could've just dropped that without preventing people from using the software. Retroactively changing the terms to only give support to people who "renew" their license every X years is a lot less objectionable than retroactively revoking their license to use the software at all and remotely bricking it through DRM.
- huhtenberg 4y agoDid they really break older installs though? I read it like the change cut off the access to newer versions and older versions still work as before.
- franga2000 4y agoThe header screenshot in the article shows a "license not valid" popup and the article doesn't say anything about existing licenses. The quote "one of my colleagues [...] came across the expiration of his license" isn't clear either, but leans more towards "fully revoked" than "no more updates" in my reading. However, if existing versions do still work, I fully support the dev. In a world where billion-$ corporations advertise 50$/m "unlimited" phone plans that aren't actually unlimited, a solo dev revoking a lifetime support and update plan that cost 7$ two decades ago isn't even worth writing about.
- behringer 4y agoIf 7 dollars isn't worth writing about then I'm sure the author won't mind issuing my refund should my lifetime license ever expire.