It used to be buy the product , keep it and get bug fixes for 3 years. Upgrades would be introduced every couple of years, and users could get the upgrade at a discount, same as there were competitive discounts if you sent in the title page from the competitors user manual.
What you bought didn't stop working (heck, dBASE still runs fine in DOSbox if I feel nostalgic). Same with games (SimCity 2k in DOSbox let me finish it and yes, your city launches into space).
Everybody wins solution (Score:0)
Here's a reasonable compromise that doesn't screw all customers out of rights, so naturally it almost never gets adopted:
Buy once = get the product
Want updates? Support? = Pay as you go. Stop paying? You get to keep the product to the point where you stopped paying.
Re: (Score:5, Interesting)
It used to be buy the product , keep it and get bug fixes for 3 years. Upgrades would be introduced every couple of years, and users could get the upgrade at a discount, same as there were competitive discounts if you sent in the title page from the competitors user manual.
What you bought didn't stop working (heck, dBASE still runs fine in DOSbox if I feel nostalgic). Same with games (SimCity 2k in DOSbox let me finish it and yes, your city launches into space).
Would you buy a solitaire game as a servi
Re:Everybody wins solution (Score:2)
Word/Excel for Windows 95 still do everything nearly everyone needs.
And even though a little bloated at the time, they run like lightning on modern hardware.