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It’s not a blind spot. Its an acknowledgement of the fact that small time operations are often run by people without MBAs and without lawyers checking everythin
by mikl 4y ago
It’s not a blind spot. Its an acknowledgement of the fact that small time operations are often run by people without MBAs and without lawyers checking everything. Megacorps should be held to a higher standard, because they have the resources to meet them.
- cmeacham98 4y agoWhat's the higher standard? "Megacorps are expected to actually honor their agreements"? I'd love to hear you articulate what the difference here is that Megacorps would be expected to catch with their "MBAs and lawyers", but the author of mIRC wouldn't?
- mikl 4y agoMBAs and lawyers would have prevented the sale of perpetual licenses to begin with. Supporting software is a recurring expense, so selling lifetime support for a flat fee is a timebomb that will inevitably end up as perpetual a financial burden, so the more such licenses you sell, the more you set up the company for future failure. That’s an excusable mistake for a small company. Not for a big corporation.
- cmeacham98 4y ago"Ongoing cost" has nothing to do with it, if that was true the author would have just cut support but still allowed users to use the software and receive updates.
- mikl 4y agoMaking updates is also an ongoing cost. For software as old and complex as mIRC probably a significant one.
- cmeacham98 4y agoI'm not asking for the author to write updates if they don't want to. I'm asking that if they do (for whatever reason), that they make their updates available to those who already paid for them (and static file hosting is practically free nowadays).
- mikl 4y ago…and given this choice between continuing to work for free, or abandoning his life’s work, it’s not entirely unreasonable that he decided to go for the option of reneging on the perpetual license mistake, even if that is distasteful. For the people who don’t want to pay for a new license, the outcome is the same as if he just shut mIRC down: no more updates. So from that perspective, they’re no worse off. And the people who are happy to pay another $20, they will be able to continue to enjoy the software.