[discussion] Schema of Valentina server licensing

[Robert Brenstein]

>
>Fixing bugs costs money. I can appreciate wanting to get bug fixes for
>free, as the assumption is that you shouldn't have had that problem in
>the first place. Im not convinced that it's a sound business practice to
>do that because of the complications it introduces (unless it's an
>incredibly easy fix to implement).

Lynn, yes, it costs money, but what Ruslan, er, Paradigma Software, 
is doing now is not quite appropriate IMHO and not in accordance with 
industry "standard".

Since both you and Ruslan somehow miss my point, let's look carefully 
at the current situation.

Ruslan releases 1.9.7 and starts working on 1.9.8. A bug is found in 
1.9.7 but he fixes it ONLY in whatever is the next beta of 1.9.8. The 
official release remains at 1.9.7 and the bug is there until 1.9.8 
becomes an official release. If I want the fix, I have to get that 
beta.

Since beta releases can (and are) buggy (which is partly why there 
are so many of them), I should not be FORCED to join beta testing. 
Instead, a bug fix release for current official 1.9.7 should be 
issued.

This is not too much to ask for, or is it? As far as I know, this is 
how most software vendors operate.

Of course, if the bug affecting 1.9.7 is found after it was frozen, I 
do not expect a new fix, Of course, if a significant number of users 
is still actively using it and the bug is serious enough, Ruslan may 
decide to fix it after all (hey, Netscape released version 4.8 as a 
bug fix for 4.78 not that long ago despite version 7 being the 
current official release).

Of course 2, a fix does not have to be issued for every single bug 
found. Ruslan can can accumulate a few fixes before a bug fix release 
is issued unless a bug is serious enough. That is common practice.

>
>Do you mean that FileMaker still issues updates to v4, even now that
>it's a version no longer sold?

No, of course not. They stopped updating 4 when when 5 came out. 
However, a) they kept fixing 4 while working on 5, and b) despite 
their currently shipping version 6, I could have recently updated my 
copy of FMP 4 to whatever was last fix by fetching the updater from 
their web site.

I have also just upgraded my CodeWarrior 4 to 7 and fetched all the 
fixes for version 7 from Metrowerk's web site despite version 7 being 
an old version. Same situation as for Filemaker.

All I ask for is that the same becomes true for Valentina.

Robert