…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 o

…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.