Amazing New Subscription Benefit

[rhys]

"Welcome to the first installment in our series of Autodesk Subscription Benefit Updates. In this letter we’d like to highlight a key business benefit delivered by your subscription contract: ‘Prior Release Operability’.

As a subscription customer you are legally entitled to use prior versions of previously purchased Autodesk software - even after you have installed an upgrade of the same product. (This legal right is only available to subscription customers.)

Prior release operability means you can keep your design software up to date, but without in any way compromising workflow continuity and productivity. For example, you and your staff can continue using one version of software on an incomplete project, even after you have installed a new version of the same product.

To learn more about prior release operability and how it could help improve you and your organisation’s productivity, please contact your Authorised Autodesk Reseller. Or contact us directly at:
emeasubscriptions@autodesk.com

Prior release operability is only one of a range of business benefits delivered by Autodesk Subscription. We look forward to telling you about them all.

Thank you for your time and attention,
The Autodesk Subscription Team "

Who thought up this one.? Autodesk are so out of touch that some idiot, in the marketing team comes up with such an amazing deal. So now I know why I pay my subscription, its not for the new feature, its so I can keep using the old ones! GREAT

[Justin Marchiel]

I think you missed the point of the notification. on large jobs it might not be feasable to change software due to the down time and reeducation of the users. this allows you to install the new software and keep using the old ones to finish up the jobs.

ultimately if you are on subscription, once you receive the new version, it takes over the license of the old and therefore the old once is invalid. this lets you continue with both.

I can understand your frustration, but legally this is good news for licensing.

Justin

[ford347]

I see the point, but the bottom line is you paid for the software, you should be able to keep as many old ones as you'd like. But since I'm on subscription, I guess I don't really pay attention.

Josh

[aaronrumple]

...and it solves the situation I had with a project in Viz. We started in one release of Viz. We had our subscription upgrade sitting on a shelf. The project was almost done. Something happened to the computer and screwed up the license. We called to fix the authorization on the computer and were told - sorry - "No code for you..." You have to install the new version. I was more than a bit "miffed" that I had to stop production - install and configure new software. Adjust the project settings for the new version, before I could finish.

[rhys]

I think you missed the point of the notification. on large jobs it might not be feasable to change software due to the down time and reeducation of the users. this allows you to install the new software and keep using the old ones to finish up the jobs.

ultimately if you are on subscription, once you receive the new version, it takes over the license of the old and therefore the old once is invalid. this lets you continue with both.

I can understand your frustration, but legally this is good news for licensing.

Justin

Revit has always allowed previous releases to be used on the same machine.
This has always been the case with Revit Subsciptions, and in the distant past when I used it, was even true of Autocad.

[rhys]

...and it solves the situation I had with a project in Viz. We started in one release of Viz. We had our subscription upgrade sitting on a shelf. The project was almost done. Something happened to the computer and screwed up the license. We called to fix the authorization on the computer and were told - sorry - "No code for you..." You have to install the new version. I was more than a bit "miffed" that I had to stop production - install and configure new software. Adjust the project settings for the new version, before I could finish.

Aaron
Thats outrageous, I'm surprised you took it so bravely.

[aaronrumple]

Aaron
Thats outrageous, I'm surprised you took it so bravely.

It was a "lengthy" conversation....

[patricks]

looks like nothing new to me, except I guess now they're stating it in writing. Ever since I started using Revit on 6.1, we have always kept the previous version running alongside the new version.

[hand471037]

Revit has always allowed previous releases to be used on the same machine.

Revit allows it. Your EULA may not. IIRC the EULA of most Autodesk products says that when you upgrade, you're only allowed an 'overlap' of six months of concurrent use before you have to remove the old software from all machines that are now using an 'upgrade' license. At least this is the way it was back in the 2000i-2002 AutoCAD days.

Just because the software runs, and just because you paid for said software at some point is meaningless. You simply license software, under the terms of the EULA. Y'all should really read your EULA, for it's best to understand the terms you're agreeing to use the tools. As Aaron ran into, just because you paid for a copy of Viz at some point, and then upgraded automatically via subscription, before this change you could get stuck when you needed to reactivate...

[iru69]

I think you missed the point of the notification. on large jobs it might not be feasable to change software due to the down time and reeducation of the users. this allows you to install the new software and keep using the old ones to finish up the jobs.

ultimately if you are on subscription, once you receive the new version, it takes over the license of the old and therefore the old once is invalid. this lets you continue with both.

I can understand your frustration, but legally this is good news for licensing.

Justin

The arrogance of Autodesk is the point. We are suppose to bow our heads and give thanks to this lunacy. And this is not "good news" for licensing. It's sad news - it blatantly shows how little rights as a consumer you have. Every time they issue some edict further defining your "rights", you are essentially losing your "rights".

I heard about this one on NPR this morning:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=7492263

"The inventor of a wedding dance called the "electric slide" is so miffed that ordinary people are depicted as doing his number incorrectly online he is planning to sue them under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."

The legitimacy of such a lawsuit isn't really what's at stake - it's a ridiculous case. What is at stake is that we're creating such an unbelievable sick culture of "Intellectual Property" "rights" that people actually start to believe that all this nonsense is somehow in their best interests... e.g. "this is good news".