I feel that if their are going to be laws that protect the comercial software companies from consumers (i.e. Piracy) then their should also be a law that protects consumers from comercial software companies.
Here’s my point. If I purchase a brand new 1969 car back in ’69, I should, today, be able to find parts to fix or keep up the car, correct? I should not be forced to trade in my car for a new car in order to be able to service it.
This is my problem with software. What if I don’t want to upgrade (for a price). What if I’m perfectly happy with my software. I just want the company to continue to issue patches and support as need. But should they be allowed to put out a product today, expect you to pay full price and thenleave you out in the cold when they decide they don’t want to support such an old product? Is that fair? Shouldn’t their be some law againts that? If their going to admit that their old product sucks and that you really do need to upgrade then they should allow us to UPGRADE for free. If I purchased your poorly designed product in the first place, why should I pay for your bug fixes. Don’t try to sell me with all these new featurse that just slow down my system and require me to upgrade my hardware, just fix your damb bugs and don’t charge for it, that should the law. Back to the car analogy, should Ford have charged their customers to replace their faulty tires?
Thats my beef with comercial software.