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At 09:03 AM 04/18/2000 -0700, Guy K. Haas wrote:
>What about companies that sell software for big bucks, then offer
>upgrades for peanuts? If you paid $200 for release 3.0, and then can
>upgrade to 3.1 or 4.0 or beyond, over the Net, for $10 each upgrade,
>would not the company resist discounting older releases?
Yes, but the issue here is that developers often *NEED* older versions in
order to make an application run properly. (Although it is possible --
though often *VERY* tedious -- to upgrade applications, the task if
infinitely easier if you have actually seen the application run, and know
exactly what each step is supposed to do. This is often difficult to fully
grasp from code, alone -- especially poorly-documented code, and/or
programs written to make the programmer indispensable, and thus as
confusing as possible.)
Under these circumstances, I wish that companies could sell "downgrades"
comparable to upgrades (and requiring that the purchaser is a registered
owner of a later version), and clearly designated as not being upgradable.
