I see that for black friday and the new version, the upgrade is now at 88 bucks. But the subscription is for 83. In the blurb for the subscription, it says it doesn’t matter when your subscription ends for resubscribing. So my sub ended about a year ago. I would like to get the new version. According to the description there seems to be no reason not to get the subscription. Whats the benefit of just the upgrade?
The subscription is opt-out. Some people hate that. I don’t like it myself. We started it because some people in Asia and the South Pacific fell afoul of the combination of time zones, holiday weekends, and the Intll Date Line.
Still, upgrade subscriptions have been much more popular than I would have expected.
but i don’t see a difference. is there a difference, other than saving some money with the subscription?
EDIT: As Mr. Bernstein pointed out, my thoughts was definitely WRONG! I I feel sorry for writing such misleading post, and I haven’t even tried out both upgrade and subscription myself. Please forgive me for such irresponsible reply.
Mr. Bernstein clarified that subscription and upgrade gives you exactly the same right to use the software but the subscription is renewed automatically.
Glad to see Eastgate has chosen such a great price model so I won’t be freak out seeing my documents are read-only.
Say sorry to you all, again.
When update, you OWN all the software versions before the expiration of your license, which means you can continue to use your final version for the whole lifetime.
When subscribe, you RENT the software and after the expiration of your license you can only open your files in read-only mode.
In conclusion, subscribe for less money, and update for more freedom.
I’m curious how much does it cost after the first year of subscription? The order page Tinderbox: Buy Tinderbox Today lists the price for the first year being $83 but does not list the price after it. Will it be cheaper for the next year?
Sorry to pick nits, but you don’t own the software - you have a permanent, non-existing licence to use it. In legal terms, you’re renting for a single, non-expiring fee, as opposed to renting for a fixed-term, renewable fee.
In practice, my nitpicking doesn’t make a difference - except the the only person who owns Tinderbox is Eastgate.
Sure, thanks for your correction!
@eastgate can weigh of course, but I’m sure the Tinderbox software does not fall into read-only mode when the subscription end.
And, Tinderbox is not the only service that does not fall into read-only mode – so the comment @niwtr made is not universally correct.
For Tinderbox, this is true for everyone, whether they buy individual upgrades or subscribe.
The only difference is whether your next upgrade order is entered automatically, or if we wait for you to enter it yourself.
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Tinderbox upgrades are currently $98/year. Right this moment, there’s a brief sale that brings the upgrade price to $88. We offer these discounts perhaps once a year.
OK, I think I am kinda smart, but I still have no idea what the difference is between the subscription and the upgrade with Tinderbox specifically. That said, I just put in the order for the upgrade.
So perhaps an example would help. Let’s say Bob buys the subscription today and Alice buys the upgrade today. In June, let’s say that version 9 is released. How much does each person pay to get that version. And then in January of 2021 (well past the 12 month expiration), can Alice and Bob both use version 9 that they upgraded to? I think those are all the paths to test for…
Since that is less than a year from now neither pays anything to get version 9.
Since Bob bought the subscription, his credit card would have been automatically charged by Eastgate one year from now. So he would be able to use whatever version is the current version at any time in the future. Alice bought a license that expires one year from now. She can use whatever Tinderbox version is current at the time her license expires. She can use that version forever.
- Any new versions released in the year from the start date are free and can be used indefinitely. This applies to both Bob and Alice
- On November 27 2020, Bob;s subscription automatically rolls over for another year and a year’s payment is taken (assuming he hasn’t cancelled during the year)
- On November 27 2020, Alice’s upgrade expires - she will be reminded to renew. But, if she doesn’t renew, she can carry on using any version of TB released before the expiry without restrictions. However, she will not get any further software upgrades. If a new version of TB (TB11) is released in June 2021, she can then pay the upgrade price and start another year of upgrades. Further, if she decides she’s happy with her version of TB until, in 5 years time, @eastgate introduces a compelling new feature that she wants, she can buy the upgrade then and get her year of updates.
In short, the only difference between upgrade and sub is that sub autorenews and upgrade doesn’t. You can buy the upgrades only when you need them/can afford them.
Bill Gates convinced us that we don’t own any software and it has been downhill ever since. he did it because he wanted to sell the same software package millions of time.
or i actually have ownership of my software. apart from rebranding it under my name and selling it, i should have the power to modify, recompile, port. in other words open source. Mark can still get paid for the program but then i own it and i can do with it what i will. most licenses have a statement protecting the author from liability so what is the point. if i own tinderbox and i come up with a great idea and fix it on my copy, i can either keep this to myself, give it away for free or sell it back to Mark.
bill gates or mark or whomever can sell as many copies of their creation, but they SELL instead of renting or licensing and i own it. with the current licenses, including tinderbox, on eastgate’s whim my software must be returned to him and it would be a crime if i kept it. ownership prevents big brother from watching me and telling me if i can cannot use it
This is not realistic at least for visible future. Say, the software itself is easily protected from being pirated by using authentications (for example, your license keys, etc) but once you get the source code, you get a non-protected piece of software. One can distribute the source code like virus if the law cannot track them. At that time, everyone can get a “free” copy of Tinderbox and Mr.Mark will earn less money.
Releasing the source code is not a wise thing if you have some commercial competitors.
Some companies release the source code of their software (like Corman Common Lisp GitHub - sharplispers/cormanlisp: Corman Lisp) when the company is getting out of business. But for Eastgate, I think it’ll survive for decades, with this fantastic software.
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you did not ask for realistic answers. this is my philosophical answer to subscriptions and licenses the whole current system is broken and garbage
Bill Gates - and every other major software developer outside the open source community - simply took advantage of existing practice. Software licensing was standard practice before anyone had heard of Microsoft.
So to clarify. If I subscribe today and then cancel the sub in 364 days then sub again soon after and cancel in another 364 and so on and so on, they are identical other than the price. Subscribing saves 17 bucks a year but screws over the developer (reminder, I upgraded yesterday)