Are expired vB 3.5.4 licenses worth anything?

[Kadence]

I have a few inactive licenses for 3.5.4. Are these old licenses worth anything? Has anyone heard of people willing to buy expired licenses like that?

[LilPimpnRapper]

I sold my 3.8.5 for $50 if that means anything.

[Abomination]

You should ask sales, but I *believe* they cannot be transferred if they are older than 90 days from when the licenses expired.

[MRGTB]

I have a few inactive licenses for 3.5.4. Are these old licenses worth anything? Has anyone heard of people willing to buy expired licenses like that?

Not worth much really I'd say, because a person buying it will not have access to download vB 3.6, 3.7 or 3.8. And they would have to pay at least £110 for the cheaper forum only upgrade of vB4 that also gives them access to those other later vB3 version - if that's what they want to stick with using.

Unfortunately, because there is no cheaper vB3 upgrade deal only on the table, means second-hand vB3 licenses are pretty worthless now. IB have destroyed the vB3 second-hand market because of their greedy pricing structure. Pretty much nobody is going to interested in taking it off your hands to use vB 3.5.4. That's too old a vB3 version today, plus it would break with PHP 5.3 that's just around the corner soon probably being installed by most server host or higher.

Personally, I wouldn't give more than $20 now for an expired vB3 license, maybe even as low as $10 if it doesn't have access to vB 3.8.5 (with PHP 5.3) support added. Simply because of what it costs to renew it again with IB. When you do the maths (keeping in mind it's second-hand). It's not worth paying more than that, when you also have IB's renewal cost added on top of that sale.

Just something to think about and chew on. If you can get $50 bucks for it, I'd snatch their hand off. That's a good price!

[Abomination]

One more thing, a license, any license expired or not, will allow access to vb.com and vb.org customer areas forever (under the current terms). That may be of some use to someone.

[Floris]

They are worth something. You can run them without a time limit, so you can run a forum on it. I have acquired a few and people who wanted to get rid of vB license donated theirs to me. Expired owned licenses can be transferred again. I got someone from the vBS team in a ticket telling me this. Expired owned licenses also grant you access to vBorg/vBcom (for now), wihch means access to resources and private content. And you could get a 3.8.5 license, and upgrade to 4.x and perhaps be out cheaper than buying a 4.x new.

[Trevor Hannant]

From the License Agreement - www.vbulletin.com/go/license

If you are the original licensee of the Software, you may make a one-time, permanent transfer of your license rights in the Software to a third party ("Subsequent Licensee") provided that five (5) conditions are met. The conditions are: (a) you are the original licensee, (b) the Software was purchased by you more than 90 days prior to the transfer, (c) you do not keep a copy of the Software for yourself, (d) the Subsequent Licensee agrees to the terms of this Agreement and the License, and (e) the Subsequent Licensee agrees to assume your license rights in the Software, excluding this transfer right. For sake of clarity, the right to transfer the Software belongs solely to the original licensee; the Subsequent Licensee is prohibited from transferring its rights to any third party.

[MRGTB]

They are worth something. You can run them without a time limit, so you can run a forum on it.

The problem is though, if you buy a vB3 license to start a new forum now that doesn't give you access to use the last vB 3.8.5. It's only a matter of time before your forum will run into problems and your forced to pay that £110+ with IB to download a higher forum version to keep it working OK.

Many shared host servers are running PHP 5.2.13 now, mine included. It can't be long off before many start using PHP 5.3.x, with some already doing that now. And if your vB3 forum is less than version 3.8.5 - it's going to run into incompatibility problems.

Getting a forum of the ground is very hard today, you know this yourself Floris. So nobody in their right mind is going to start a new community using vB3 on a more expensive VPS or Dedicated hosting set-up (were you can choose the PHP version used) on it. So most people are at the mercy of Shared Hosting and what they choose to install.

Bottom line, you can't win one way or another really. Not unless you get hold of a second-hand vB3 license that has access to vB 3.8.5. Anything less and your just asking for trouble buying that vB3 licence.

So the running it unlimited means little really, and neither does access to vB.org. If your forum is broken and your still left having to pay IB full price to get it fixed. IB are not stupid, they've seen this issue coming with people using earlier vB3 versions and know they'll have no choice but to pay them to upgrade their boards to 3.8.5 or higher. Hence why they're most likely keeping the full price in place and won't offer a cheaper option on vB3 only updates, and why it suited them also to release vB 3.8.5 with PHP 5.3 support to cover both bases.

[Floris]

The problem is though, if you buy a vB3 license to start a new forum now that doesn't give you access to use the last vB 3.8.5.

Can someone from staff confirm that if you buy a version 4 license type you can't download 3.8.5 ?..

[Kadence]

Thanks for the responses guys So if I'm understanding the terms correctly, if the licenses expired more than 90 days ago and I'm the original buyer, then I can sell it - I just shouldn't expect much of anything for it.

[Ace]

Expired owned licenses can be transferred again. I got someone from the vBS team in a ticket telling me this.

That seems to be contradicted entirely by the EULA that Trevor quoted:

and (e) the Subsequent Licensee agrees to assume your license rights in the Software, excluding this transfer right. For sake of clarity, the right to transfer the Software belongs solely to the original licensee; the Subsequent Licensee is prohibited from transferring its rights to any third party.

(Unless, by 'again', you meant 'once more' (as in "there was a period there where Owned Licences could not be transferred once they have expired"), but in the context of 'Is it worth anything to purchase an expired 3.5.x license', what you have said would be assumed to be 'Yes, because you can transfer it again!').

[MRGTB]

Can someone from staff confirm that if you buy a version 4 license type you can't download 3.8.5 ?..

You can download 3.8.5 is you buy a new license.

[Trevor Hannant]

Can someone from staff confirm that if you buy a version 4 license type you can't download 3.8.5 ?..

I think he's talking about a vB3 license that has expired without access to 3.8.5 Floris. vB4 licenses can download 3.8.5.

[Trevor Hannant]

That seems to be contradicted entirely by the EULA that Trevor quoted:

(Unless, by 'again', you meant 'once more' (as in "there was a period there where Owned Licences could not be transferred once they have expired"), but in the context of 'Is it worth anything to purchase an expired 3.5.x license', what you have said would be assumed to be 'Yes, because you can transfer it again!').

We had stopped allowing expired licenses from being transferred but we have now started to allow this again.

[badblu01]

if i wanted to could i sell my 4.0 is that in the rules