Wow

[Wayne Luke]

Yes it is. Government can make claims like "ignorance of the law is no excuse" but in the private world, someone who changes a contract, is obligated to inform the other party of the contract when doing so.

We informed every customer of the change via email yesterday. We also intend to uphold their current license agreements until they naturally terminate.

[Floris]

We informed every customer of the change via email yesterday. We also intend to uphold their current license agreements until they naturally terminate.

Yes, that is correct. But like my brother I would wanted to have received that email prior to the changes, so I could decide to renew the 3.x expired license rather than having to go with the 4.x one. For financial reasons. The budget for running his x amount of vb powered sites is not matching the new license fees.

[Grover]

Yes, that is correct. But like my brother I would wanted to have received that email prior to the changes, so I could decide to renew the 3.x expired license rather than having to go with the 4.x one.

Stop trying Floris. 99,99% of the expired license holders agree with you... obvious things like these should not have to be explained to this company or it's representatives.

[Sadie Frost]

Actually it is in the Announcement forum here:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=315681

2. You will be able to take advantage of a pre-sale discount offer for the new vBulletin Suite that will be available to current licensed customers only.

Well, I have to point out that that phrasing in no way informed owned (expired) license owners that they needed to re-up their access. I am still a licensed customer, even if my access to downloads has expired. The above says to me current customers will get a discount, new customers and expired leased license holders will not.

Cause I actually read that post back in August, and that's what I thought. Regardless, I wouldn't have thought from that that before 4.0 is even in public beta that my ability to renew my license would be cut off. Or that no announcement of the date for the cutoff would be given.

[Claverhouse]

Ray did mention in a post that it is smart to keep the license active, but it had no date or insight on why, etc.

The trouble with that is that any business will say the same thing, and sometimes it may be merely to encourage people to send them money now, rather than because there might be a future benefit to the customers.

Not that there seems much future benefit having arisen in this case.