Il 02/10/2012 13:51, Tom Davies ha scritto:
Hi :) I think that renting could result in better software because it eliminates the excuse that major bugs are only fixed in the newer release. At the moment MS can claim that it's the users fault if they suffer a bug because they should buy the new release. While they probably still will do that it will be easier for users to just stop paying for the current release. At the moment people have to keep using the current/old one in order to make the initial expense worth it.
You miss the main point: you stop paying, you lose the ability to read, write and modify your documents. I don't see how user will have a chance to stop paying.
But maybe I'm just missing some important detail.
Effectively the rental model levels the playing field between OpenSource and MS's proprietary stuff. Well, it levels it a little bit at least. It takes away some of the advantage that OpenSource currently enjoys. How quickly that all plays out is a different issue. MS probably haven't thought about it just yet. OTH that may be exactly part of their 'sinister plan' (It's not really sinister, they just need to make a profit) Regards from Tom :)
As far as I understood MS rental model until now, I think FOSS will increase its advantage. On the proprietary side, users will have something they'll _have_ to pay, not ste^H^H download at will (and I'm not thinking only about joe home user), while OOo will be free and available forever, in whatever current or previous version the user prefers (security patches aside).
________________________________ From: Marcello Romani <mromani@ottotecnica.com> To: users@global.libreoffice.org Sent: Tuesday, 2 October 2012, 7:32 Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: MS raised prices so people will now start renting their office products instead Il 18/09/2012 21:38, Jay Lozier ha scritto: [...]The rental model, in theory, guarantees a stabler cash flow whether the software rental is good for users is another matter.I totally agree. At $WORK we had a 3D CAD package that would not work anymore if the licence was not renewed periodically. We eventually switched to a 3D package that had a heftier tag price, but didn't force us to pay every year just to use it. When the licence for the first package expired, we lost access to all of our previous work. We had to convert everything in a hurry. It's OK to pay for software "maintenance" (i.e. updates, priority support, etc.), but I find it totally unacceptable to have a software package just stop working if you don't pay the "rent". If I was writing in italian I'd call it "pizzo" - which is a mafia thing - "Stop paying and you'll lose access to your beloved documents!". How does it sound ? -- Marcello Romani -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: users+help@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
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-- Marcello Romani -- For unsubscribe instructions e-mail to: users+help@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted