FP Technology

[Fairlight]

At Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 04:05:17PM -0500 or thereabouts, 
suspect Richard Kreiss was observed uttering:
> 
> One thing to point out, most companies that release new versions stop
> selling the older version but support the older version for some period of
> time.  A company can't keep developing updates to their program and then
> continue to sell the older version.  That would be like an auto company
> coming out with a new updated model for 2011 and one expect them to continue
> to manufacturer the old model.
> 
> I will grant that some companies will sell their previous version at a
> discount for a short period just before and after a new release to clear
> inventory.  This is not the case here as 5.6 has been out for a few years
> now.

My own stuff, I will bring out a new version and EOL the old version.  I
want to only maintain one source tree.

That said, people are free to continue to use the old source tree if they
pay for a license--but it's totally unsupported and will not be updated.
Take OneGate.  I EOL'd 3.x, and only really sell 4.x.  If someone (God only
knows why) wanted to use the 3.x code instead of the 4.x code, so be
it...it's their money, and I'm up-front that it's unsupported and will no
longer be patched, even for any security issues that may be discovered.
That's when you know I've truly EOL'd something, is when I won't patch
security holes.  Features are one thing, but if I remotely support
something yet, I'll patch security flaws.  EOL is EOL, though.  But you can
still use it if you like...and I'll even still make it available.

If the terms were made explicit, I don't see why other companies couldn't
do the same.  Hell, other companies do...or release past versions as open
source.  Or as "light" versions for free with the older fully enabled
version for very cheap prices compared to the current version (Serif does
this latter free/cheap method).

mark->
-- 
Audio panton, cogito singularis.