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They just announced that they're stealing back the product they sold to their erstwhile customers. "It could be way worse" is a hell of a response to that. "We

They just announced that they're stealing back the product they sold to their erstwhile customers. "It could be way worse" is a hell of a response to that. "We just stopped support for your Silverado. You can drive it for one more year, then we're coming to take it out of your garage. We have a deal with Ford for you to get an F-150 with a discount." "It could be way worse, at least I get to use it for another year, I hope they're getting a kickback from Ford."

dahart 2y ago
What’s with the outrage? Do you own a Finale license? I’m sorry if you do, this does suck for people who still want to use Finale, but “stealing back” seems like hyperbole. The product (along with their income stream related to it) is shutting down permanently. It died, and no amount of commentary is going to bring it back. Assuming you have a vested interest in the outcome here, what do you actually want to have happen to Finale that’s realistic for MakeMusic? What would you have done if it was your business? Have you ever had a business and had to plan the shut down a product people had paid for? Please actually consider those questions carefully. Sometimes businesses lose. You can’t force a business to make a profit or to sell something they don’t want to sell or can no longer make. There’s no good way to shut down a product. And there’s no product ever that has ceased that didn’t have buyers right before they stopped taking money. It’s a fact that it could be worse, and I already explained why, because often it actually is worse, especially with tech companies. And yes, I hope the devs at MakeMusic are okay. I don’t understand why internet commenters wouldn’t, especially if they’re Finale fans.
- jcranmer 2y ago
  If you do a quick read of the announcement, it sounds at first like "after next year, it's impossible to use Finale anymore" (a closer read indicates that what goes away is the ability to activate a Finale install, so existing copies will keep working until you get a new computer). And for a lot of people, those who are reading the announcement that way, this is going to be a "my library of scores becomes permanently and completely inaccessible" situation. Especially because, to my knowledge, no one has a working Finale music file -> their own music file converter (people have working converters from MusicXML, but you have to open up Finale to convert from its format to MusicXML, and Finale only added MusicXML support relatively recently). It's this library archival stranding that is driving a lot of outrage from some quarters, especially if you're misreading the announcement, as noted above.
  - dahart 2y ago
    That’s a great point, and I’m happy to overlook any initial misunderstandings. I would be very concerned as well if I had a Finale library, even knowing MusicXML might be available. I don’t have a Finale library, but I know at least one composer who does and is probably freaking out right now. I’m going to call him today.
- skywhopper 2y ago
  They’re making it impossible to continue to use a product their customers already paid for. How is that not stealing?
  - dahart 2y ago
    Are you a Finale user? I guess you can call it stealing if you want. The word steal has many figurative meanings, such as ‘you stole my heart’. When a product fails, yes it eventually becomes impossible to use, even when you paid for it. To me it seems like misleading and hyperbole to call it stealing because you’re implicitly assigning malice to the business that simply failed, because they failed and aren’t getting value from the software becoming EOL, because they’re offering refunds to people who paid recently and haven’t had time to get value. Do you call all products and business that fail or go out of business “stealing”? If you read the letter and FAQ in their entirety, you will see they are not making it impossible to continue to use Finale. Customers who paid can continue to use it, for as long as their computer works. They are turning off new activations on new machines, in a year from now. It’s hard to imagine that mattering very much in the face of the facts that Finale is now dead, cannot be purchased, and is going to be obsolete eventually due to incompatible OS changes no matter what. But if you depend on Finale enough to not upgrade your computer, you can continue to use Finale as long as you want.
    - domador 2y ago
      It's stealing. It's one thing if I buy a tool and it breaks down naturally. That does happen... in the physical world. It should NEVER happen in the software world, not for a standalone tool. If a company that sold you the tool (which you expected to use indefinitely) then goes out of their way to make sure you can't keep using that tool, then yeah, that's stealing. Actually, it's not stealing. It's sabotage. (And yes, they are making it nearly impossible to keep using finale. Unlike software, computers do break down. Or sometimes Microsoft forces everyone to get a new computer, as it seems will happen next year with the forced obsolescence of Windows 10 and forced move to Windows 11.)
      - dahart 2y ago
- gspencley 2y ago
  I don't have a proverbial dog in this race but I agree with the outrage and I don't think "stealing back" is at all hyperbolic. I guess if you're really really really young and all you know is subscription based software, then that is the world you know and you might just be accustomed to it and accept it. But if Finale has been around for 35 years, then it existed long before "cloud" and long before subscription software was a thing. If someone has invested money and time into using that software, into creating project files that only work with it, in learning how to use that then it is not remotely acceptable in my opinion to disable their access to something that they have paid for and invested in. I don't think that "stealing" is an inappropriate word to use in that case. Not even a little bit of hyperbole. Does that mean that MakeMusic should continue to invest their own resources into maintaining it? Absolutely not. To answer your question: "what do you actually want to have happen to Finale that’s realistic for MakeMusic?": I would suggest that they allow people who have paid for it to continue to use it indefinitely. This might mean that they need to release a patched version that's not going to activate remotely through their servers with a download link that will eventually expire. I acknowledge that that doesn't cost them "absolutely nothing" but it's not a major expense (also happens to be a fixed cost) and it prevents them from being akin to your fridge manufacturer saying "we are discontinuing this model, as well as repair services for this model, therefore we are going to enter your house and physically remove your fridge one year from now so that you will be forever unable to use the thing that you paid us money for." What they get in return for this one time "end of life" service for their paying customers is customer retention and good will. I mean, I know that I will never consider buying anything from MakeMusic as a result of hearing that they might shut off my access to things I bought and paid for at any time.
  - dahart 2y ago
    Users who’ve paid for it can continue to use it indefinitely, albeit with no support after 1 year from now. The fridge analogy is wrong. MakeMusic is not going to remove the software from your computer. > it’s not a major expense (also happens to be a fixed cost) That’s unlikely to be true, and not anyone’s decision but MakeMusic’s. What if they don’t have the money? It’s not reasonable for me to ask you to pay me $10 on the grounds that it’s not a major expense and is a fixed cost, right?
- InsideOutSanta 2y ago
  "what do you actually want to have happen to Finale" I want the existing licenses to keep working.
- Tokkemon 2y ago
  You may not understand the scale here. There are about a hundred thousand users, a lot of whom had thousands of scores in this format. Some tens of thousands. It's not a straightforward proposition to simply jump to another platform, especially since there's no perfect conversion between any notation software given the proprietary algorithms involved, and the sheer complexity of music notation itself. It's a bad day for a lot of people.
- murphyslaw 2y ago
  I "own" Finale and the Garritan instrument package, which cost me around $600 on a student license. I remember having to guide my music composition teacher through installing his MIDI interface which connects his keyboard to Finale when he upgraded his computer. He is the conductor of a local musical group and rewrites the scores for different instruments depending on the orchestra he can find/pay. This guy has spent thousands of dollars over the years, and now he is faced with.... what? Relearning the interface? Can he still open his old scores, and (rather importantly), will the score "work" in its entirety, with all the accidentals in the right place, the lyrics in the right position and split to the correct notes to be sung, the trumpets in the right key, the timpani using the correct symbols, the repeats and coda correctly defined, the personal additions still working? What about linking each instrument to the correct MIDI output or instrument package? This goes way beyond just cost, even if for a musician who doesn't make tons of money. The intellectual investment over decades is hard to express to someone who doesn't write music for a living.

dahart 2y ago

What’s with the outrage? Do you own a Finale license? I’m sorry if you do, this does suck for people who still want to use Finale, but “stealing back” seems like hyperbole. The product (along with their income stream related to it) is shutting down permanently. It died, and no amount of commentary is going to bring it back. Assuming you have a vested interest in the outcome here, what do you actually want to have happen to Finale that’s realistic for MakeMusic? What would you have done if it was your business? Have you ever had a business and had to plan the shut down a product people had paid for? Please actually consider those questions carefully. Sometimes businesses lose. You can’t force a business to make a profit or to sell something they don’t want to sell or can no longer make. There’s no good way to shut down a product. And there’s no product ever that has ceased that didn’t have buyers right before they stopped taking money. It’s a fact that it could be worse, and I already explained why, because often it actually is worse, especially with tech companies. And yes, I hope the devs at MakeMusic are okay. I don’t understand why internet commenters wouldn’t, especially if they’re Finale fans.

jcranmer 2y ago
If you do a quick read of the announcement, it sounds at first like "after next year, it's impossible to use Finale anymore" (a closer read indicates that what goes away is the ability to activate a Finale install, so existing copies will keep working until you get a new computer). And for a lot of people, those who are reading the announcement that way, this is going to be a "my library of scores becomes permanently and completely inaccessible" situation. Especially because, to my knowledge, no one has a working Finale music file -> their own music file converter (people have working converters from MusicXML, but you have to open up Finale to convert from its format to MusicXML, and Finale only added MusicXML support relatively recently). It's this library archival stranding that is driving a lot of outrage from some quarters, especially if you're misreading the announcement, as noted above.
- dahart 2y ago
  That’s a great point, and I’m happy to overlook any initial misunderstandings. I would be very concerned as well if I had a Finale library, even knowing MusicXML might be available. I don’t have a Finale library, but I know at least one composer who does and is probably freaking out right now. I’m going to call him today.
skywhopper 2y ago
They’re making it impossible to continue to use a product their customers already paid for. How is that not stealing?
- dahart 2y ago
  Are you a Finale user? I guess you can call it stealing if you want. The word steal has many figurative meanings, such as ‘you stole my heart’. When a product fails, yes it eventually becomes impossible to use, even when you paid for it. To me it seems like misleading and hyperbole to call it stealing because you’re implicitly assigning malice to the business that simply failed, because they failed and aren’t getting value from the software becoming EOL, because they’re offering refunds to people who paid recently and haven’t had time to get value. Do you call all products and business that fail or go out of business “stealing”? If you read the letter and FAQ in their entirety, you will see they are not making it impossible to continue to use Finale. Customers who paid can continue to use it, for as long as their computer works. They are turning off new activations on new machines, in a year from now. It’s hard to imagine that mattering very much in the face of the facts that Finale is now dead, cannot be purchased, and is going to be obsolete eventually due to incompatible OS changes no matter what. But if you depend on Finale enough to not upgrade your computer, you can continue to use Finale as long as you want.
  - domador 2y ago
    It's stealing. It's one thing if I buy a tool and it breaks down naturally. That does happen... in the physical world. It should NEVER happen in the software world, not for a standalone tool. If a company that sold you the tool (which you expected to use indefinitely) then goes out of their way to make sure you can't keep using that tool, then yeah, that's stealing. Actually, it's not stealing. It's sabotage. (And yes, they are making it nearly impossible to keep using finale. Unlike software, computers do break down. Or sometimes Microsoft forces everyone to get a new computer, as it seems will happen next year with the forced obsolescence of Windows 10 and forced move to Windows 11.)
    - dahart 2y ago
gspencley 2y ago
I don't have a proverbial dog in this race but I agree with the outrage and I don't think "stealing back" is at all hyperbolic. I guess if you're really really really young and all you know is subscription based software, then that is the world you know and you might just be accustomed to it and accept it. But if Finale has been around for 35 years, then it existed long before "cloud" and long before subscription software was a thing. If someone has invested money and time into using that software, into creating project files that only work with it, in learning how to use that then it is not remotely acceptable in my opinion to disable their access to something that they have paid for and invested in. I don't think that "stealing" is an inappropriate word to use in that case. Not even a little bit of hyperbole. Does that mean that MakeMusic should continue to invest their own resources into maintaining it? Absolutely not. To answer your question: "what do you actually want to have happen to Finale that’s realistic for MakeMusic?": I would suggest that they allow people who have paid for it to continue to use it indefinitely. This might mean that they need to release a patched version that's not going to activate remotely through their servers with a download link that will eventually expire. I acknowledge that that doesn't cost them "absolutely nothing" but it's not a major expense (also happens to be a fixed cost) and it prevents them from being akin to your fridge manufacturer saying "we are discontinuing this model, as well as repair services for this model, therefore we are going to enter your house and physically remove your fridge one year from now so that you will be forever unable to use the thing that you paid us money for." What they get in return for this one time "end of life" service for their paying customers is customer retention and good will. I mean, I know that I will never consider buying anything from MakeMusic as a result of hearing that they might shut off my access to things I bought and paid for at any time.
- dahart 2y ago
  Users who’ve paid for it can continue to use it indefinitely, albeit with no support after 1 year from now. The fridge analogy is wrong. MakeMusic is not going to remove the software from your computer. > it’s not a major expense (also happens to be a fixed cost) That’s unlikely to be true, and not anyone’s decision but MakeMusic’s. What if they don’t have the money? It’s not reasonable for me to ask you to pay me $10 on the grounds that it’s not a major expense and is a fixed cost, right?
InsideOutSanta 2y ago
"what do you actually want to have happen to Finale" I want the existing licenses to keep working.
Tokkemon 2y ago
You may not understand the scale here. There are about a hundred thousand users, a lot of whom had thousands of scores in this format. Some tens of thousands. It's not a straightforward proposition to simply jump to another platform, especially since there's no perfect conversion between any notation software given the proprietary algorithms involved, and the sheer complexity of music notation itself. It's a bad day for a lot of people.
murphyslaw 2y ago
I "own" Finale and the Garritan instrument package, which cost me around $600 on a student license. I remember having to guide my music composition teacher through installing his MIDI interface which connects his keyboard to Finale when he upgraded his computer. He is the conductor of a local musical group and rewrites the scores for different instruments depending on the orchestra he can find/pay. This guy has spent thousands of dollars over the years, and now he is faced with.... what? Relearning the interface? Can he still open his old scores, and (rather importantly), will the score "work" in its entirety, with all the accidentals in the right place, the lyrics in the right position and split to the correct notes to be sung, the trumpets in the right key, the timpani using the correct symbols, the repeats and coda correctly defined, the personal additions still working? What about linking each instrument to the correct MIDI output or instrument package? This goes way beyond just cost, even if for a musician who doesn't make tons of money. The intellectual investment over decades is hard to express to someone who doesn't write music for a living.