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Topic: «License Expired? » on forum: Technical Support   Views: 48076
 
Alex Fadeyev
Administrator

Moderator
 
 Posts: 1437
Joined: 09/30/2005
Posted: 10/18/2014 04:05:27
 
 
 Gentlemen,

Following your advices, the Upgrade Policy information has been added both to EULA (the paragraph beginning from "Registration also grants you...") and to each product's Order page (for example).

Please could you check the text in EULA for correctness/clarity and the Order page appearance?
 
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Zardoz2293
 
 Posts: 302
Joined: 07/27/2010
Posted: 10/18/2014 12:59:53
 
 
Quote
Gentlemen,

Following your advices, the Upgrade Policy information has been added both to EULA (the paragraph beginning from "Registration also grants you...") and to each product's Order page (for example).

Please could you check the text in EULA for correctness/clarity and the Order page appearance?
Looks good Alex!

Sincerely,
Lars
 
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Pim Joosten
 
 Posts: 549
Joined: 11/11/2010
Posted: 10/18/2014 15:20:36
 
 
 Hi Alex,

Good to see that you picked up our suggestion. I have a couple of remarks.

(1) First I have adapted the update part of the EULA a little bit resulting in a (IMO) clearer text. Some of these changes are language related, others to avoid misreading of the text. I hope you find it useful.

Registration also grants you a Free Updates Subscription for a
certain period (a year), beginning from the date of purchase.
During this period, you are eligible to get new versions of the Software
for free. When this period expires, you can continue to use the last
version received under the subscription indefinitely.
In case you want to continue receiving the latest updates of the Software,
you will have to purchase another registration code to prolong the Free Updates
Subscription for one more year. Purchasing a prolongation comes with a discount
and can be done any time after the previous subscription period has expired.
NOTE: Installing a version released after the subscription's expiration date
will turn your copy of the Software back into an unregistered version;
the registered status can be restored by entering the code you received
after your purchase of a prolonged Free Updates Subscription.

(2) Second, you may want to consider increasing the font size of the line "Free Updates Subscription" to the same size of the other text. You probably want to avoid people saying that they overlooked that line because it was written in a smaller font or that they say you want to "hide" your upgrade policy because of that smaller font. IMO it would look clearer and be a better presentation of the product if you used the same font size.

I hope this was helpful.
Best regards,

Pim
 
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Pim Joosten
 
 Posts: 549
Joined: 11/11/2010
Posted: 10/18/2014 15:49:59
 
 
 @Zardoz2293

Quote
The primary problem with containing too much information in the readme.txt file is simple human problem. People are lazy and will stop reading in most cases when it goes beyond a single page.
I agree, but a company has an obligation to spell out all changes, not just the most important ones. Otherwise they will get burned sooner or later. What a company can do however is use simple language and keep it as short as possible. The user makes the choice and bears the responsibility for whether or not to read the whole text. I will immediately admit that usually I do not read the entire text of a EULA (paragraphs about that I do not buy the software but merely buy a license to use it are standard, so I can skip such parts), but I do look for the most important parts (how many computers/users f.i.).

Quote
The biggest problem with policy, license and subscription issues is changes are almost always made so you really can't tell what has changed.
I must say I have not seen this much with software. Perhaps with services. Have you?

Quote
Frankly speaking, in the time it has taken me to respond to half a dozen of these postings, I could have written a beta notification service within a software product.
I did not know that, but then I am not a software developer.

Quote
iOS always being free. That's a very bold statement. In fact iOS had not always been free.
You can tell I do not use iOS. (I dislike Apple as a matter of fact  ;)  (mainly because their lack of ethics, but that is a whole different subject)

Quote
I've found one thing to be true throughout life. KISS = Keep It Super Simple. The only complexity to anything should be multiple-multiple levels of simplicity.
This is THE TRUTH, IMO. Other translations: Keep It Simple Stupid! or Keep It Stupidly Simple. Although I must admit it is not always easy to accomplish. Just take  look at all the options in AWM for instance. We, the users, all want these options (just take a look at the Feature Requests forum), but it makes the product more complicated. The meaning of KISS should be to really assess whether an option is needed and to implement options as simple as possible.

Best regards.
 
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Zardoz2293
 
 Posts: 302
Joined: 07/27/2010
Posted: 10/18/2014 16:30:41
 
 
 @Pim,

Quote
I agree, but a company has an obligation to spell out all changes, not just the most important ones. Otherwise they will get burned sooner or later. What a company can do however is use simple language and keep it as short as possible. The user makes the choice and bears the responsibility for whether or not to read the whole text. I will immediately admit that usually I do not read the entire text of a EULA (paragraphs about that I do not buy the software but merely buy a license to use it are standard, so I can skip such parts), but I do look for the most important parts (how many computers/users f.i.).
The changes in the upgrade policy were presented. I saw it and I have no doubt that others did too. There are also those who have been cleaver using AWM's beta program to use the product without having a paid license. Not necessarily a problem fr om my perspective as it really depends on what value they bring to the table helping enhance the quality of the product through feedback. The simple fact is Actual Tools made a mistake in providing the upgrade policy in multiple places (missing a place or two) and smart users exploited the error to their argument advantage. I suspect these people eventually received a complementary 1-year subscription. I don't have the same perspective of the EULA having the upgrade/subscription policy within it, but that is splitting hairs.


Quote
I must say I have not seen this much with software. Perhaps with services. Have you?
Just follow any Microsoft or Apple product license agreement from one release to another and immediately identify what has changed. I suspect you don't have the time or the desire to identify just like 99.99 percent, including me.


Quote
I did not know that, but then I am not a software developer.
Writing software is easy and quick, the tricking part is in the details and integrating with other developers who often do not follow the rules and you end up spending 90 percent of your time trying to figure out external bugs to get your part working correctly.


Quote
You can tell I do not use iOS. (I dislike Apple as a matter of fact smile;) (mainly because their lack of ethics, but that is a whole different subject)
Apple lack of ethics -- Interesting subject. I'd be interested in knowing how that is different than the ethics of any major corporation, including specifically wh ere Apple has offended you.


Quote
This is THE TRUTH, IMO. Other translations: Keep It Simple Stupid! or Keep It Stupidly Simple. Although I must admit it is not always easy to accomplish. Just take look at all the options in AWM for instance. We, the users, all want these options (just take a look at the Feature Requests forum), but it makes the product more complicated. The meaning of KISS should be to really assess whether an option is needed and to implement options as simple as possible.
I like the meaning I create with "Simple" used and it can be argued you are being negative with the term "stupid" or a derivative thereof.

Sincerely,
Lars
 
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Alex Fadeyev
Administrator

Moderator
 
 Posts: 1437
Joined: 09/30/2005
Posted: 10/22/2014 18:32:31
 
 
 Hi Pim,

Quote
(1) First I have adapted the update part of the EULA a little bit resulting in a (IMO) clearer text.

Accepted, thank you very much. I have updated the EULA text.

Quote
(2) Second, you may want to consider increasing the font size of the line "Free Updates Subscription" to the same size of the other text.

Thank you for a suggestion but I think we will keep the current look of the Order Form until we actually get a complaint about probable "hiding your upgrade policy". :) IMO, now it looks quite clear and visually appealing, striking the fact that you are purchasing a product while the subscription comes as a free addition. However, I have increased the font size by 1 point and make the "Free" item bold so now it can't be missed, I believe. :D
 
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Pim Joosten
 
 Posts: 549
Joined: 11/11/2010
Posted: 11/02/2014 01:00:52
 
 
 Hi Alex,

You're welcome. I think the way you chose to adjust the Order Form is an improvement and I agree with you it is very clear  :idea:  :idea:  now  :)

Best regards.
 
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Pim Joosten
 
 Posts: 549
Joined: 11/11/2010
Posted: 11/02/2014 01:27:05
 
 
 Hi Lars,

Quote
I'd be interested in knowing how that is different than the ethics of any major corporation, including specifically where Apple has offended you.
Well, I agree with you that many major companies could use better ethics, but I think Apple has got quite a few items on their list. At one time I could easily mention 6 to 7 items showing that, but I forgot, since I like to invest my energy in better things. But a few I can mention:
1. The downright refusal many times and in many different countries of the European Union to follow EU law on warranties. In the EU it is required to give at least 2 years of warranty (in The Netherlands it is even more). However, Apple stated on their webpage that there was only 1 year of warranty and above that one should buy extra service. As said, by law, a customer has at least 2 years of warranty. They only changed their webpage after being threatened with a law suit and in Italy and at least one other country Apple was convicted to follow the law. They did not conclude that if their policy was determined to be wrong in one country, that they should also adjust their policy in other countries because it is EU law. No, they had to be threatened and sometimes taken to court in many countries.
A few years ago there was a consumer TV show on Dutch TV where people complained that after one year Apple simply refused to repair under warranty a broken iMac and there were many other examples.
2. To stay in the EU: Apple was the only manufacturer to not follow the agreement between cellphone manufacturers and the EU to only use micro USB as the connection for charging a cellphone. The only reason for this EU measure was to prevent people to need a different charger for every cellphone, thereby also saving our environment.
3. In France a retailer went bankrupt because Apple did not deliver iPads anymore, but did sell them in their own Apple stores. This retailer had been a loyal Apple reseller for a long time.
4. Apple never explicitly mentions when an Operating System will not receive any security updates anymore (iOS or Mac OS) and the lifetime of their OS'es is shorter than most people think (and shorter than Windows' lifecycle).
5. One time I had a difficult task bug tracking an error in Outlook. After almost a day I had solved the issue: apparently iTunes had installed a plug-in in Outlook and it was now bugging me even though I had removed iTunes more than a year before. So first it installs a plug-in without my consent or knowledge in Outlook (why the hell must iTunes install an Outlook plugin?) and then it fails to uninstall it when I uninstalled iTunes.

Like I said, there are more items on my list, but at this moment I can only come up with these five (should be enough). I think Apple behaves like Microsoft did some 10-15 years ago. Microsoft has learned its lesson (although sometimes they seem to get a little bit of their arrogance back), but Apple can still get away with it because they apparently have a good reputation. Well, the people in the consumer program I wrote about had a good opinion about Apple, but now they all stated "Never Apple again".


Quote
it can be argued you are being negative with the term "stupid" or a derivative thereof.
These were actually quotes from other authors, not my translations. But they can be fitting in the right circumstances. I guess that goes for all three translations of KISS.

Best regards.
 
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Derek Moss
 
 Posts: 38
Joined: 09/30/2011
Posted: 11/02/2014 03:09:07
 
 
Quote
1. The downright refusal many times and in many different countries of the European Union to follow EU law on warranties. In the EU it is required to give at least 2 years of warranty (in The Netherlands it is even more). However, Apple stated on their webpage that there was only 1 year of warranty and above that one should buy extra service. As said, by law, a customer has at least 2 years of warranty. They only changed their webpage after being threatened with a law suit and in Italy and at least one other country Apple was convicted to follow the law. They did not conclude that if their policy was determined to be wrong in one country, that they should also adjust their policy in other countries because it is EU law. No, they had to be threatened and sometimes taken to court in many countries.

Well I can tell you that Microsoft are just as bad in this respect. It's been held in EU law that it's not permissible to tie software licences to hardware, yet MVPs on all the forums will refuse to help you and call you a pirate if your Windows licence key is one that was originally assigned to specific hardware, e.g. Dell and your current machine is not a Dell.

I have no evidence that Microsoft are instructing them to do so but MS has given them their seal of approval as MVPs and has clearly not accepted the legal situation in the EU or made sure their MVPs understand this and so I hold MS responsible for ignoring the law and approving of individuals who are refusing to help and libeling people who have valid and legal licences for their products.

Regarding warranties, practically every online retailer in the UK still seems to state that products have only 1 year of warranty (other than those which the manufacturer provides a longer warranty for), indeed some state that after a short period, like 30 days, any warranty claims have to be taken up with the manufacturer, when in law the retailer is responsible for at least the minimum warranty period of 2 years.
 
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