Roy,
At the risk of hurting our friendship and starting a flame war, I feel I must reply. I do not think a company who sells a product as an outright purchase is obligated to continue to sell it that way. We always seem to use Microsoft Word or something similar as the analogy. So, Microsoft sells us Microsoft Word and the EULA allows you to keep it forever and received updates and support. But, with the next version, they are certainly not obligated to continue to sell it in that fashion. They may as they have a right to do, change it to a subscription model. Jon could, if he wished, just stop selling or making AmazingCharts. He would be obligated only to honor the support contract for the year.
Jon does not have to indicate by EULA or otherwise as to whether Version 4.0 will be subscription. He can make that clear when it is put out. This is the same as when the prices increasd which is also legal and ethical.
At this point, any version 3 is purchased. And, there are some people who don't see a difference. And, that is fine. People disagree all the time.
I agree that some of the bugs and ideas have not been changed. But, most of these are not bugs. They are ideas we have wanted to change. I am just as frustrated that my ideas, which I think are excellent but others may not, do not get implemented. But, let's take Word again or Outlook. Microsoft allows each user to email them with ideas. They will even write back saying they received it. But, Microsoft or Adobe or whatever will NEVER implement changes until the next major release. They will produce patches to fix bugs and security issues, but you will not see any features added or changed. I think we on the boards forget this and also think that some of these changes can be made with one line of code. One of the advantages of working with a programmer the past few years is finding out which things I ask for can be implemented easily and which cannot.
You may feel that users are taking your views as trivial, and I am sorry you are discouraged by this. Just because some or many users do not agree with your views just as they may not agree with someone else's views, does not mean they are trivializing yours. You are not spinning your wheels on the boards. Some of your statements and ideas have been met with overwhelming agreement and some have not. As I have stated many times, the vast majority of statements are met with complete silence from the vast majority of users. You also should consider that some of those who post the most (read me) do not agree as vehemently with Paul and your view on the EULA.
I don't think you would do better venting elsewhere. I have always appreciated your input on the boards. So have others. I only wish we could go back to the pre-EULA days when we all had fun or talked about how to improve the Rx writer whether it was improved or not.
I also think that just because some of us have fun talking about issues other than AC or joking about PVC, etc., does not mean we don't care about the direction of AC. It is in no way impossible to do both and to suggest otherwise is unfair.
