Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

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> It is honestly shocking the number of posters here that seem to think it's completely morally ok to renege on the deal with these lifetime subscribers because the author didn't make much profit?

mIRC sales are obviously declining. Author wants to continue supporting it, but the business model no longer works. The options now are:

1) Shut it all down. Author takes a job somewhere else. Product lifetime ends. Lifetime agreement honored.

2) Be honest, admit lifetime agreement isn't workable going forward, and come up with new license terms. Doesn't match the letter of the original license, but project gets to continue and author can continue working on it.

3) Create an "mIRC 2.0" out of nowhere that isn't any different than an incremental update, but gets presented as an all-new product. This is functionally equivalent to #2, but also adheres to the letter of the original agreement.

I don't consider "author forced to work on product in perpetuity at a loss" an option, so I didn't list it here. I prefer admitting that the business model needs to change over shutting down the product or doing name-only new product launches to get around lifetime licenses.

I'm not expecting the author to continue work on mIRC in perpetuity. If they want to decide they're done and stop updating mIRC, that would be totally ok in my book.

What is unethical, in my opinion, is to continue updating mIRC and not honor the agreement you made with some of your earliest supporters, even if you kinda regret that agreement now.

So you’d be okay with changing the name of the product while at the same time changing the lifetime agreement

No, of course not, that would be dodging their responsibility just as much. They sold a license to all future updates of mIRC, I expect that to be honored (or refunded if not reasonably possible to honor) - and not for the author to try to play games to get out of this commitment.

The author could start a new project, not based on mIRC, and sell that separately.

> Shut it all down. Author takes a job somewhere else. Product lifetime ends. Lifetime agreement honored.

And this is why DRM (as with mIRC apparently) is such an issue. People should be able to just keep using their version, instead of being dependent on some license server responding properly.

Why is "refunding the people he seems to have defrauded" not an option? Appeal to consequences?

They most certainly are not sitting on all that money, it was used to fund the project.

It’s not defraud if he decides to pull the plug and stop development entirely, but then no one will be able to enjoy it. They could also change the name of the product and loophole out of the situation as well. That’s honestly what they probably should have done given the backlash here.

The whole thing is silly and overblown.

> They most certainly are not sitting on all that money, it was used to fund the project.

Then declare bankruptcy and to their best to fulfill the obligations then restructure and continue. Basically he took out a loan he cannot repay, which is unfortunate but not unusual. What is unusual is telling the people you borrowed the money from “I realized I can’t pay you back and still have as much profit as I want, so I’m considering the debt to be absolved.”

What he did with the money is irrelevant. He sold people a lifetime support contract. He then decided he wanted them to pay more, so he canceled them all just because he felt like it. The fact that his original sale was a stupid idea is also immaterial. Every one of those people should get a refund, because he's explicitly told them they're not getting what they paid for. Instead he keeps their money and invites them to give him more. It's revolting behavior.

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