Dr Skip,

I agree with you completely.  I want software developers to make money, but 
I also want to be protected.
I bought a $12,000 microwave & RF software package from Eagleware in Stone 
Mountain Georgia in about 1999, in about 2004 they stopped support.  This 
has a parallel port dongle and can't be used with
most new machines without a parallel port or with new software.  Now they 
have been bought by
Agilent EEsof EDA and that adds to the problem.

I think if you buy a $12,000 package you should get to use it much longer. 
This is the type of thing that is leaving a bad taste in the mouth of so 
many.



Derward Myrick






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dr Skip" <drskip@gmail.com>
To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." <piclist@mit.edu>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 1:45 PM
Subject: Re: [EE] shareware / software copy protection


>I have dozens of apps and development tools, paid for and legal over the
> last 15 yrs +-, that either the company went away, or the product is no
> longer supported, or it was bought by a bigger company and it's
> 'technology' became part of a bigger $1000 'suite'. In all cases,
> problems occurred because of new OSes, conflicts with other, newer
> software, or problems with new hardware and some help or update was
> needed. I don't care what the customer is being told, when the board or
> the founder decides to sell or close the doors, you will probably get
> screwed. End of story.

<snip>

>> No clue, have seen quite a few dongles just "stop". On top of that is
>> new OS's not working with the dongles (and the company not releasing new
>> drivers since the software I'm using is "no longer supported"),
>> companies only offering lpt dongles (despite that port being gone from
>> most PCs), poor drivers (problems like what people here have described
>> with regards to ICD2 drivers). The BIGGEST issue is you have to hope and
>> pray that the company continues to exist. Have encountered problems with
>> dongles and then discovered the company went belly up, so zero support.
>> All of a sudden the thousands of dollars we've spent on a piece of
>> software, and the hundreds or thousands of man hours spent learning the
>> software, is down the drain.
>>
>>
>
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