Has IB turned the ship around?

Not trying to insult you but you'd do well in taking a basic course at a local college about contracts, etc. The terminology is important. Telling someone to remove the root directory is not the same as telling someone to just remove a directory.

NO - you haven't read your license and you hope to cheat by guessing that common practice or what you read in forums is what you get.

READ THE LICENSE. It says you have a perpetual right to run the vBulletin software you downloaded. If you downloaded 3.6.3 you can run it forever (barring termination, e.g. like an upgrade, which I won't get into.) What if your maintenance subscription expires? Your ability to download and run further versions of the software ceases. If you don't want to upgrade, you don't have to, but you are stuck running 3.6.3 forever. If you read it you'd know this and, if what you say is true, what is the differnce between a leased and owned license? Try to answer that question.

NO. I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just telling you the facts. READ YOUR LICENSE. You can run your "owned" license FOREVER. If you had to buy annual maintenance in order to run your license, what is the difference between an "owned" license and a "leased" license. There wouldn't be any. Annual maintenance allows you to buy access to and a license to run further updates, e.g. 3.8.3.

In fairness, this isn't entirely your fault. The documentation is woefully sparse regardining maintenance. But you still have to READ YOUR LICENSE before commenting YET AGAIN.

NO again.

1) If your annual maintenance subscription expired, you would have had to pay $40 to get updated. Now there is no offer. If you have 3.6.3, you cannot pay $40 to update to 3.8.x. Your choice is to pay $190 or MORE to upgrade to the suite. Why not pay $130 plus the $40 maintenance? Damn good question. Go ask Internet Brands why they are gauging us.

2) FOR THE BILLIONTH TIME EVERYWHERE... there is NO 2 years time that the $130 or 190 or 210 fee cover. If vBulletin wants to release vBulletin 5 in six months and ask for another upgrade fee... THEY CAN. THIS is why all of us are so mad. Ray, Wayne, Steve and whomever else can yap all they want in the forums about what they propose, what they think, what they hope and it is ALL SPECULATIVE. There is NOTHING in your license that says they can't or won't charge you again in six months or a year - or have a presale again next October. SHOW ME where it guarantees this.

Hopefully now this explains to you the beginning of the real problem. Hopefully this also teaches you a little bit about contract law and licensing. I find some hosts are just guys who run computer stuff but don't really know the laws of the business you're in. Not entirely you're fault but keep an open mind that some of us might have some experience here and you might want to question your own sources at times and have them show you.

 

Did you seriously just say exactly what I said in another way and yet tell me I'm wrong? Wow, just wow my friend.

Trying to say it a new way here (I'm admittedly running out of ideas).

You have the owned license. You run vB 3.8.2 to pick a number. Your license has "expired" in the sense that you do not have support/upgrade ability. You would then need to purchase a renewal to upgrade or get support. For instance, I would need to purchase that to upgrade to vB 3.8.4 to pick another arbitrary number.

The difference between that and a leased license is that when the license expires, you can no longer use set license. You would either need to renew the license or change software.

And that shows you definitely aren't reading what I'm saying. I really don't know if you're just that mad to read right now if that's just how you read things...but see above for another way of saying what I've been trying to say for a while now. I fully understand the license, it just seems you don't fully understand me for whatever reason.

So basically it comes down to they're raising the price on your license. Which, understandably, you don't want to do.

Neither was it ever guaranteed vBulletin would release another product update when you first purchased the software and then renewed for support/upgrades. You could have paid for that software used it for a year, and in the meantime they say. Oh, when you're yearly renewal is up, that's it. We no longer offer support nor will we release any new versions.

They don't owe you a renewal at the same price. That's exactly why they raised the price about a year ago on existing customers. That specific renewal is only as good as the time it lasts for. You're free to run your current vB license to your hearts content. Otherwise, you'll have to upgrade and pay the costs. When you enter into a contract, the amounts only last as long as the contract. Your license to run the current software is intact. Your cost to upgrade the license has changed along with the licensing structure in this case. Is it exactly fair? No, but that's the reality of it. Starting threads about conspiracies won't change it.

Theoretically, yes, IB could launch vB 5.0 tomorrow. Chances are they won't, and you still have vB 4.0 to run for a lifetime, just like you have 3.x. And, as always, you have the prerogative to change software, which would definitely happen if vB 5.0 ends up coming out in 6 months. You act as if the current software choice enslaves you for life. It might take a lot of time and money to switch, but that's the opportunity cost of choosing any non-custom software. Viability is a concern with IB/vB given recent events, but again it's the same choice, either press forward or don't.

 

Remember what I wrote specifically about not screwing up the terminology? Remember the analogy above about the difference between removing A directory and the ROOT directory?

Conceptually yes but your license does NOT EXPIRE. In fact, your own license says it DOES NOT EXPIRE. The problem is that you AND Ray Morgan of Internet Brands keep throwing around these important legal terms like they are unimportant. Let me ask you this - what if you offered a DEDICATED server for $65 a month when you meant to say you were offering a VPS account with DEDICATED resources? The two do NOT mean the same thing yet both provide a customer with "dedicated resources."

NO again. Let's review.

1) Terminology is important.
2) The entire license model has changed. vBulletin 3.x was based on a license for the product with one year of updates with annual subscriptions. vBulletin 4 is now based on a license for the PRODUCT and its updates, whether or not that product lasts 5 minutes, 5 months or 5 years.

How is this very different? If Jelsoft sat on its butt for 2 years and didn't do much, you could choose not to update your software and pay maintenance fees for nothing. It happens all the time in the industry. Now you are paying for new "versions" - what is that? What is version 5, 6 or 8? It is what Internet Brands says it is - whether you like it or not.

RIIIIIGHT. Now you're getting it. And as I said, if they dragged their feet for 4 years I didn't have to pay that $40 every year unless I thought they would or did earn it.

STOP TALKING. What they did was deliberate and they will admit this to you - read Bob Brisco's blog. This is no secret. Unfortunately most here are so clueless that they keep yammering about conspiracies and don't know the basic terms of what they bought.

1) You're right that IB can raise the price of maintenance any time. But if you've got any kind of a relationship with your customers, do you send your customers an official email alerting them that the price will go up in a month and you need to pay for a maintenance subscription beforehand to qualify, or do you just surprise them with 50% price increase one morning? Ray Morgan was blabbering something about how "I warned you before about keeping your licenses current" in the forums. More unprofessional, unofficial yammering and rumor mongering started by the General Manager. It's more embarrassing than anything else.

2) With regard to breach of contract, this one is interesting but let's just talk about common sense and relationships. If you want to have any relationship with your customer, what's the harm in allowing me or any customer to get what I bargained for - the ability to pay my maintenance fee for $40 and get to the end of the 3.x product line, from 3.5.3 to 3.8.x? Why am I being forced to upgrade to 4.0 and pay $190? There is no good reason!!!! Internet Brands just decided one day to tell every person who bought 3.x that they REFUSE to allow you to do business as you had for years and that they want this money so they can release endless press releases how they sold record upgrades because vBulletin owners are so in love with the new vBulletin 4 that Internet Brands is releasing. Do you follow?

Oh... you mean the company that told me in September I can buy a product and add on for $180 + $50 and then in October tell me I MUST pay $130 or else I'd pay $235 later? Give me a break. If this is who you trust, you'll be telling me that going to a person named Madoff is a good idea because some people made a killing. Now who do you think IB is going to charge if their stock starts dropping like a rock next year and they are in desperate need of revenues because VB 4 isn't selling like they had hoped?

NO - what do you do? Just data transfers or do you see how the result of your actions might impact a business? Are you even reading what you are writing? If it costs a lot of time and money to switch to anything, then the vendor has the customer in a sensitive position. And yes, if the cost to switch results in being too high a cost then, yes it DOES enslave you. Are you connecting the dots yet?

Many people invested in add-ons, customizations, integrations and also publicity in getting backlinks in numerous other sites. How many of these links might be lost if you converted your data to PHPBB? You'd have to find a way to ensure that every link was redirected to the current new URL. Plus there is no guarantee that the 5,987 backlinks you have in blogs will be updated by each blog owner. You can't switch forums like you can motor vehicles.

The Jelsoft people treated customers fairly and built trust. It didn't overprice its software even knowing we were in difficult positions. They would likely pre-announce any important changes being made before they did. And what were upgrade prices? Bob Brisco admitted in his blog that the $175 upgrade fee for vBulletin forum owners isn't "fair." He said it was designed to get every forum license holder to upgrade to the SUITE version, not the blog, because the SUITE is vBulletin's product now, NOT forums. (Remember, we have to read everything and understand it.)

I won't get into the rest. What most of you haven't learned is how the big boys play. It's not a conspiracy. As Jack Sparrow said, it's about what a man can and what a man cannot due. In this instance, whether or not IB was also legally wrong, they are sending a message to customers that they can screw us and it's up to us to spend money and time on a lawsuit for the $20, $50 or $100 or whatever we were forced to pay.They had leverage and they used it like a iron jackhammer. Now that we know the facts, we don't need to paint a happy face on this group that just made off with our loot.

There ya go. I won't be around much more to respond since I've spent too much time just here trying to explain the basics. Go ahead and use the software you already bought but hopefully some of you who are defending vBulletin will stop and listen before helping them fight their battle. If enough people put up a resistance, perhaps it could compel this company to do the right thing even if they have to be forced by its customer base to do so.

 

Can we change the thread title to Slinky vs CrazyTech, or the other way round?

Just starting to get to a good discussion ... but couldn't quite get there.

Is there any chance Slinky & CrazyTech can just agree that neither will agree with the other, and quit replying to each other on this topic? Both of you have made your points. And made them and made them. Be done already.

P.S. I am not an AA mod and shouldn't be posting this. But for a split second there I thought we would get a good discussion going ... oh well. Matters less all the time.
:zzz: [walk away icon here]

 

:nono:

If you have problems with a post, report it; don't make it your responsibility to handle it yourself.

 

Ignore it. Don't people know how to ignore threads these days.