Owned Licence Agreement dishonoured?

[McMendo]

I have 4 vBulletin owned licences. 3 of them expired in February, because there was no urgent need to upgrade (no work worth the money). 1 of which also with the blogs.

And now they are worth nothing?

Please, tell me that this is a joke.


By the way, what happened to the thread Who else is outraged over VB4? It had an enlightening poll and post comments. Is this a new feature in vBulletin, that uncomfortable threads vanish?

[ruinernix]

I am really mad.

The license agreement reads:

The license is effective until terminated (Owned License)/The license is effective for one year from the date you purchase the Software (Leased License). You may terminate it at any time by uninstalling the Software and destroying any copies in any form.

Nowhere does it say that vBulletin can terminate the license, and this is what they are doing right now by stopping us from renewing. There were no warnings before and had we renewed a few days ago we'd all be eligible for upgrade pricing. This is 100% dishonest business practice.

[Black Tiger]

and this is what they are doing right now by stopping us from renewing

Incorrect. Your 3.8.x license remains valid. It does not say anywhere that your lifetime owned license is valid for all versions of vbulletin. That's the trick.

And yes you were warned. There was a big discussion going on begin this year when the update fees rised. Same question was handled there too.

Read your license carefully. This is not dishonest, this is commerce.

It's not fair, I agree with you there. But unfortunately you license is not terminated and you can keep using your license.
Problem here is that in the beginning the agreement said you paid per year for priority support and it should have been saying you pay per year for priority support and upgrades to future versions. It does now I think, but I'm not sure.

[ENF]

Incorrect. Your 3.8.x license remains valid. It does not say anywhere that your lifetime owned license is valid for all versions of vbulletin. That's the trick.

This holds true with most any software package. A perfect example is Windows! Does Microsoft charge you for a upgraded version? YES. Does Microsoft charge you for security fixes/service packs? NO. Can you continue to use a product once they have stopped supporting it? YES.

The same holds true in our corporate software products, upgrades and new versions always cost us thousands of dollars. It's just the way the game is played...

[Wayne Luke]

You can continue to use your existing licenses as you have been. If the licenses were owned and expired than you will not be able to upgrade. If they are owned and active, you'll be able to upgrade until they expire. However we no longer offer a renewal product. After they expire you will need to convert them to the vBulletin 4.0 license or accept that you won't be eligible for upgrades.

[terabyte]

You can continue to use your existing licenses as you have been. If the licenses were owned and expired than you will not be able to upgrade. If they are owned and active, you'll be able to upgrade until they expire. However we no longer offer a renewal product. After they expire you will need to convert them to the vBulletin 4.0 license or accept that you won't be eligible for upgrades.

Wayne Luke, maybe you can also explain why no email was sent out about this, so people could catch up with the renewals?

[thedudleys]

You can continue to use your existing licenses as you have been. If the licenses were owned and expired than you will not be able to upgrade. If they are owned and active, you'll be able to upgrade until they expire. However we no longer offer a renewal product. After they expire you will need to convert them to the vBulletin 4.0 license or accept that you won't be eligible for upgrades.

So those who have inactive/expired owned license would have to pay $235 (until the rate increases to $285) for a (what jelsoft says) is a new license and they already owned license would be virtually useless in a sense?

(PS: the license agreement has been changed from the original from what we can tell of)

[ENF]

So those who have inactive/expired owned license would have to pay $235 (until the rate increases to $285) for a (what jelsoft says) is a new license and they already owned license would be virtually useless in a sense?

(PS: the license agreement has been changed from the original from what we can tell of)

Your owned/inactive license is only useless for Version 4. You can still use the VB3 series as-is. I don't expect a VB3 Owned license to apply to a new version of VB4, unless I upgrade it.

Although, I'm kicking myself for not buying another owned license for a new site before all of this happened. Shouldn't have waited...

[ruinernix]

And yes you were warned. There was a big discussion going on begin this year when the update fees rised. Same question was handled there too.

I don't remember reading my license and seeing something like "You need to read the vbulletin.com forums to stay up to date with your license terms".

If the renew option was to be removed, a formal warning should've been sent to all license owners that would have an expired license after the cutoff date.

That is why I call this practice dishonest. We were remove a right that we had with no warning and are now asked to pay full price.

[wrestlingwire]

Those who have an owned license and don't regularly visit the vBulletin forums would have no knowledge of vB4's expected release until today's email. Had they known that having an active license would enable them to upgrade to vB4 at a fraction of the price, then most would ensure their license was active. I have had an owned license for a few years and only upgrade when I get emails about the release of a new version that seems like it's worth upgrading to.

Now I'm in a position where vBulletin is suddenly changing their license structure leaving me, and many others, in a position where I must pay a large upgrade fee (on top of the owned license fee that I already paid) or continue to use the outdated version.

This holds true with most any software package. A perfect example is Windows! Does Microsoft charge you for a upgraded version? YES. Does Microsoft charge you for security fixes/service packs? NO. Can you continue to use a product once they have stopped supporting it? YES.

Does Microsoft allow you to upgrade to the latest version of windows for free if you bought your current version within the last year? NO. They charge the same fee for everyone - but probably offer special discounts to all current customers. Whereas vBulletin is providing a significant discount to customers who have held an active members area account within the past year and screws over everyone else. A warning of this change before it was implemented would have been nice to allow customers like myself to take the necessary actions. Now I'm just left high and dry...thanks vBulletin!

[McMendo]

You can continue to use your existing licenses as you have been. If the licenses were owned and expired than you will not be able to upgrade. If they are owned and active, you'll be able to upgrade until they expire. However we no longer offer a renewal product. After they expire you will need to convert them to the vBulletin 4.0 license or accept that you won't be eligible for upgrades.

The point of having an owned licence was to be able to upgrade to the next version under the terms of the owned licence agreement, at a better price than for a leased licence.

By terminating this agreement (hence dishonouring it), my years-long owned licences will be worth the same as the leased licences purchased by anyone for the first time within the last year.

The reason why 3 of my owned licences have expired and stayed at version 3.8.1 was that there was no upgrade that would justify their renewal and I was waiting for the release of version 4.0 to renew.

And now you tell me that not only I will not be able to upgrade to the next version(s) with my owned licences, but that I will also not be able to convert to the new licence agreement.

I hope that you can see why I feel deceived.

And also how you have set a strong ugly precedent in the customer relations of vBulletin/Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.

[Batouchu]

Does Microsoft allow you to upgrade to the latest version of windows for free if you bought your current version within the last year? NO.

Actually they do :]
if you buy vista now you get a free upgrade to 7.