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The End of Finale

finalemusic.com

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Re: The End of Finale

#101

Post by dahart »

Lammy wrote: post #89
dahart wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would that achieve? Why would anyone want a pile of old code that can never build or run?

Somebody would be able to replace the unreleased portions with new code.

It’s a nice thought, just extremely unlikely, no? Unlikely that someone has the time to deal with a huge legacy system, and unlikely they’ll be able to rewrite portions and get it working. There are very good reasons this hardly ever happens, releasing proprietary code, even when it’s all modern and working. The potential downsides are usually bigger than the upsides.

Re: The End of Finale

#102

Post by dahart »

vunderba wrote: post #96
dahart wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users who’ve paid for it can continue to use it indefinitely, albeit with no support after 1 year from now. The fridge analogy is wrong. MakeMusic is not going to remove the software from your computer. > it’s not a major expense (also happens to be a fixed cost) That’s unlikely to be true, and not anyone’s decision but MakeMusic’s. What if they don’t have the money? It’s not reasonable for me to ask you to pay me $1…

Users who’ve paid for it can continue to use it indefinitely, albeit with no support after 1 year from now FALSE. From the announcement, "It will not be possible to authorize Finale on any new devices, or reauthorize Finale". If I have to reinstall it for any reason, such as my computer dying, or I get a virus, or I upgrade my computer, or any myriad of reasons, I am completely SOL and can no longer "continue to use…

I was referring to this:

https://makemusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/258438881308...

“Will my software continue to function?

Yes! Your existing authorized Finale installations will continue to work as long as your current computer is working.”

BTW, I did make the mistake of saying ‘forever’ in another comment, but FWIW ‘indefinitely’ doesn’t mean forever. Also, it doesn’t matter what I say, I don’t work for MakeMusic, just read the whole FAQ.

Re: The End of Finale

#103

Post by gspencley »

dahart wrote: post #92
gspencley wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a proverbial dog in this race but I agree with the outrage and I don't think "stealing back" is at all hyperbolic. I guess if you're really really really young and all you know is subscription based software, then that is the world you know and you might just be accustomed to it and accept it. But if Finale has been around for 35 years, then it existed long before "cloud" and long before subscription sof…

Users who’ve paid for it can continue to use it indefinitely, albeit with no support after 1 year from now. The fridge analogy is wrong. MakeMusic is not going to remove the software from your computer. > it’s not a major expense (also happens to be a fixed cost) That’s unlikely to be true, and not anyone’s decision but MakeMusic’s. What if they don’t have the money? It’s not reasonable for me to ask you to pay me $1…

> That’s unlikely to be true, and not anyone’s decision but MakeMusic’s

The nuance here is that it depends on the contract between MakeMusic and their customers. If I'm purchasing a subscription and the fine print makes it clear that service may be discontinued at any point for any reason, fair enough. If I make a one-time purchase and expect that I will be able to use what I paid for indefinitely, then them taking down their activation servers without providing a workaround might be a violation of their contract with their customers.

But I'm not making a completely ill-informed proposition when I suggest that the expense would be minimal and fixed for MakeMusic to do what I suggested. Obviously I don't know all of the details about how their software works, so I can't know for sure. I'm making certain assumptions based on how long their software has been around, the fact that they have a remote activation mechanism and having developed software professionally myself for over 25 years.

Re: The End of Finale

#104

Post by gspencley »

dahart wrote: post #102
vunderba wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users who’ve paid for it can continue to use it indefinitely, albeit with no support after 1 year from now FALSE. From the announcement, "It will not be possible to authorize Finale on any new devices, or reauthorize Finale". If I have to reinstall it for any reason, such as my computer dying, or I get a virus, or I upgrade my computer, or any myriad of reasons, I am completely SOL and can no longer "continue to use…

I was referring to this: https://makemusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/258438881308... “Will my software continue to function? Yes! Your existing authorized Finale installations will continue to work as long as your current computer is working.” BTW, I did make the mistake of saying ‘forever’ in another comment, but FWIW ‘indefinitely’ doesn’t mean forever. Also, it doesn’t matter what I say, I don’t work for MakeM…

> but FWIW ‘indefinitely’ doesn’t mean forever

You just really like arguing for the sake of arguing don't you?

I'm sure that if I opened a dictionary I would find the distinction, but most people treat the words 'indefinitely' and 'forever' as synonymous. Nit-picking on that minutia kind of makes you come across like the obnoxious little brother who does the "But I'm not touching you!" thing to his sister. It's just annoying and most reasonable people know exactly how 'indefinitely' and 'forever' will be interpreted.

Re: The End of Finale

#105

Post by dahart »

domador wrote: post #86
dahart wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a Finale user? I guess you can call it stealing if you want. The word steal has many figurative meanings, such as ‘you stole my heart’. When a product fails, yes it eventually becomes impossible to use, even when you paid for it. To me it seems like misleading and hyperbole to call it stealing because you’re implicitly assigning malice to the business that simply failed, because they failed and aren’t getting…

It's stealing. It's one thing if I buy a tool and it breaks down naturally. That does happen... in the physical world. It should NEVER happen in the software world, not for a standalone tool. If a company that sold you the tool (which you expected to use indefinitely) then goes out of their way to make sure you can't keep using that tool, then yeah, that's stealing. Actually, it's not stealing. It's sabotage. (And ye…

I hope people treat you with respect and understanding and don’t attack you for stealing if you ever need to discontinue any of your software products or happen to go out of business. I have had my own software business, and had to plan the sunset of a paid product, and it would have been hurtful if people accused me of stealing when I was already hurting due to being out of money and feeling like a failure. Thankfully, none of my customers did that to me, as far as I know.

As you point out, it’s Microsoft or Apple forcing you to upgrade. Why are you blaming MakeMusic for that? If you don’t upgrade, then your currently running copy of Finale will continue working. It’s completely unrealistic for most people to not upgrade, but still, it’s not MakeMusic’s fault that people upgrade.

Re: The End of Finale

#106

Post by EvanAnderson »

dahart wrote: post #100
vunderba wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all the negative replies to your post, it's rather unbelievable to me that you can't figure out why. Number 1: this is not a cloud-based product, it works entirely off-line, so saying that the product ceases to exist is also wrong, I and many others archive the installers to re-install them on new computers. Number 2: Microsoft prides itself on backwards compatibility, and it is very common to run software that…

This does suck. I truly, honestly feel bad for you and other Finale users. I might indeed be wrong (about what I’m not exactly sure yet despite your comment), but I think you maybe misunderstood my comment a little bit. I didn’t say the software will cease to exist, but the product actually went on life support yesterday and will cease to exist in a year. You can’t buy it, and support ends in 1 year. After that it no…

> I’ve watched loads of Windows software become incompatible...

I've been a Windows sysadmin since the late 90s. This has not ever been my experience with productivity software. Games and hardware drivers can be problematic, for sure, but productivity software by-and-large can be made to work fine on newer versions of Windows.

> It sucks when software products you depend on go away...

It's not "going away"-- it's being taken away. That's the issue people are having with it.

Bits don't rot. Locally-installed software doesn't "wear out". (Yes, yes-- you need to employ different security paradigms and compensating controls with "out of date" software in light of vulnerabilities. That's still not the software "wearing out".)

It's deeply saddening anyone would just accept perpetually-licensed use rights for locally-installed software being revoked after-the-fact. This should be the the purview of consumer protection regulation, not resignation that the world just works that way.

Re: The End of Finale

#108

Post by wvenable »

dahart wrote: post #59
wvenable wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It could be way worse So they chopped off your finger, it could be worse they could have taken the whole hand! The right thing to do is release a version that doesn't require authorization at all.

The existing authorized versions will continue to work forever. What more do you want from a product that ceases to exist? It’s going to EOL no matter what very quickly as OSes get incompatible upgrades. If you’re still using Finale a year from now hoping that it’s somehow going to continue, you’re only tricking yourself.

I bought Office 2013 over 10 years ago and I still install it on my desktop.

It is available as a Windows app right? It takes a lot for Microsoft to make their OS be incompatible with apps.

Re: The End of Finale

#109

Post by wvenable »

dahart wrote: post #102
vunderba wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users who’ve paid for it can continue to use it indefinitely, albeit with no support after 1 year from now FALSE. From the announcement, "It will not be possible to authorize Finale on any new devices, or reauthorize Finale". If I have to reinstall it for any reason, such as my computer dying, or I get a virus, or I upgrade my computer, or any myriad of reasons, I am completely SOL and can no longer "continue to use…

I was referring to this: https://makemusic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/258438881308... “Will my software continue to function? Yes! Your existing authorized Finale installations will continue to work as long as your current computer is working.” BTW, I did make the mistake of saying ‘forever’ in another comment, but FWIW ‘indefinitely’ doesn’t mean forever. Also, it doesn’t matter what I say, I don’t work for MakeM…

"...will continue to work as long as your current computer is working."

This doesn't seem dumb to you?

Re: The End of Finale

#110

Post by wvenable »

dahart wrote: post #80
skywhopper wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re making it impossible to continue to use a product their customers already paid for. How is that not stealing?

Are you a Finale user? I guess you can call it stealing if you want. The word steal has many figurative meanings, such as ‘you stole my heart’. When a product fails, yes it eventually becomes impossible to use, even when you paid for it. To me it seems like misleading and hyperbole to call it stealing because you’re implicitly assigning malice to the business that simply failed, because they failed and aren’t getting…

> Do you call all products and business that fail or go out of business “stealing”?

I have plenty of products from companies that go out of business. Some of them even have servers that they depend on. At least one of the companies did the right thing and allowed their physical hardware product to continue to be used by people running their own servers.

It's not rocket science. It's should be the right and moral thing to do. Are they legally required to do it? No. Should they be? Probably yes.

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