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Comment by domador | Hacker News Reader

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 yes, they are making it nearly impossible to keep using finale. Unlike software, computers do break down. Or sometimes Microsoft forces everyone to get a new computer, as it seems will happen next year with the forced obsolescence of Windows 10 and forced move to Windows 11.)

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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.

Upgrade? What my CPU melts and I need a new computer. This has nothing to do with Microsoft of Apple. All they have to do is allow their product to continue to be installed -- it's easy. Nobody expects anything else from them. If, for whatever reason, it no longer installs on Windows 17 -- so be it. As long as it was not explicitly sabotaged by it's creator to not run.

> 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.

No-one is attacking MakeMusic for discontinuing their product, yet you continue to assert this.

People are attacking MakeMusic for removing a way that you can continue to use their product as long as there are no technical limitations preventing you. No-one is saying "Oh, it needs to support Windows 14 and macOS 18". They are saying "there is nothing wrong with the software I purchased, nor the hardware I wish to run it on. You are just arbitrarily preventing me from doing so".

They don't have to keep activation servers running. Create a patch that disables the online activation requirement. Done.

I understand this distinction. I understand why some users are upset. However, I am getting dogmatic blowback in this thread by some people who admitted never purchasing Finale, and are not interested in discussing the pros and cons of any tradeoffs or alternatives, and don’t even want to consider the possibility that this isn’t fun for MakeMusic either.

It sucks if people expected authorization would continue to work forever. How many people would actually use that if it existed, and what is a reasonable user base threshold below which they can turn it off? It doesn’t matter what I think, but I don’t think leaving the auth servers on is going to benefit more than a very tiny handful of people at most, and thus probably isn’t worth the effort. And again, it’s entirely possible this is all coming at Steinberg’s request and was deemed an acceptable tradeoff by MakeMusic, assuming that it would benefit more people than it would harm. The discount vs activation tradeoff very well might benefit more people than it harms.

Personally, having run a software business, and having known others who’ve run software businesses, I see failed businesses, failed products, and company acquisitions all under the same umbrella of causing real problems against the expectations of buyers. All of those situations cause changes to the EULA, and people don’t like change, especially when they’ve paid money for constancy, I can completely and totally understand that. I was just trying to calm the pitchforking down a little… and not doing that great of a job, obviously.

If MakeMusic is offering the Dorico discount in return for no competition via turning off the auth servers, in a way that’s almost like Steinberg acquiring Finale but killing it. Maybe that could have happened, and maybe this way was cheaper and less legal paperwork for both parties, I dunno. Nobody else here does either.

> but I don’t think leaving the auth servers on is going to benefit more than a very tiny handful of people at most, and thus probably isn’t worth the effort.

You say this, but of the composers who haven't moved to Dorico by now, they're probably very set in their ways. So I'm not sure "very tiny handful" is accurate.

I don't actually think they should be required to maintain auth servers, hence the patch.

> And again, it’s entirely possible this is all coming at Steinberg’s request and was deemed an acceptable tradeoff by MakeMusic

I still have no idea why this relevant or appropriate. "Hey, we might have been willing to continue to "allow" you to use the software you know, you bought, but another agreement sounded more appealing to us". That would actually be pushing on the concept of tortious interference (where a third party induces a first party to renege on their agreement with a second).

> And again, it’s entirely possible this is all coming at Steinberg’s request and was deemed an acceptable tradeoff by MakeMusic, assuming that it would benefit more people than it would harm. The discount vs activation tradeoff very well might benefit more people than it harms.

Entirely so. And maybe for some, the financial aspect is what's holding them back. But to be clear, Finale itself has been several hundred dollars (I believe I paid $299), so I don't know that that was the distinction for some.

Also, there is the removal of choice. "We're turning off the activation servers. You can pay $179 to some other company, or lose access to the software you'd already paid for". I don't know that your "oh you're not losing it, because you can keep running it, if it's already activated" is anywhere near the argument you think it is.

> but of the composers who haven't moved to Dorico by now, they're probably very set in their ways. So I'm not sure "very tiny handful" is accurate.

Fair point, maybe more people will be caught than I think. I do know a composer that hasn’t moved yet, and he is pretty set in his ways.

On the other hand, it’s also possible that the whole reason Finale is shutting down is because the user base is already too small. And, even people set in their ways are now being notified that Finale is going away, which is news, so a lot of the people still left will certainly move before the year is out, right? We’re both speculating on how many will be left and whether we can subjectively call that many or few, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to estimate those still left in a year from now will not be the majority of the user base they had last week.

I agree with you that suggesting people can continue to run Finale is a weak argument. If you look, you might notice I’ve actually argued that it’s pretty unrealistic for most people and probably not going to work for long. I only corrected people who’ve incorrectly claimed or implied they would lose any and all access, and I only did that because that’s what the Finale FAQ says and I assume people are getting angry before reading and understanding the entire situation. People have a year to install Finale on a new computer, and if it’s really super important they can setup a machine that won’t get upgrades or other applications on it, and Finale might continue to work for longer than a year. That’s still unrealistic and I neither expect nor encourage it, but it is an option, should someone sufficiently motivated want to take it. Seems better to me to take the Dorico discount or explore MuseScore or Sibelius or something else and not waste time wishing Finale would continue to run.

This is the kind of software which is going to have a small number of dedicate users who depend on it a lot. The fact that there's a small number of them is outweighed by the disproportionate amount that it affects them, likely professionally.

(Artists get very attached to their tools: this happens with physical objects as well, where e.g. it's very common for an artist to have hoarded up a very large stock of their favourite pen/pencil/brush because it was discontinued. Not an option with software that's had its auth servers turned off)

Yes, you’re totally right. I’m aware of this (what artists do), and they are pulling the rug out from under these people by discontinuing Finale. Leaving new installs working beyond 1 year won’t actually fix that, for even most of the die-hard artists attached to Finale. That’s the part that nobody here is admitting, despite the fact that it’s true. The set of people who aren’t willing to move to Dorico or Sibelius or something else, and also who will be technically able to keep Finale running even if new installations are allowed, that set is near empty or empty. Keep it running with new installs allowed is almost as unrealistic as keeping it running without allowing new installations on new machines. It’s unrealistic to assert that allowing new installations will make anything significant better for a meaningful number of people. Finale is dead. In theory or in principle, abstractly, it does suck they’re disabling new authorizations in a year, but in reality it’s not going to matter. In the mean time, if that move enabled Dorico to feel good about offering a $450 discount, that might really help a lot of people. I’m just guessing, but it could help more people than will still be trying to run Finale next year.

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