Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 9:44 pm

We are nearing the release of CMUD 2.0 and I got to thinking about a few things like the fact that before this time next year I'll need to renew my license for CMUD and I got to thinking about a few things. First off most of these are hypothetical questions but are very likely to come up later.

Let's assume for sake of discussion that the date is Dec 2008, I bought my copy of CMUD June 2006, CMUD 2.52 was release in August 2008 and CMUD 3.0 is released in Dec 2008.

Now if I understand it correctly I will be able to upgrade my version of CMUD, without cost, to version 2.52. And if I wanted to upgrade this license 3.0 I could do it for half the cost of CMUD at that time. Is that correct?

Suppose now, because I really like Zugg that I decided to buy a full version of CMUD 3.0 I now have two licenses. One at version 2.52 with no more free upgrades available and brand spanking 3.0 version with 2 years of upgrades still within it. Would it be possible to 'gift' my 2.52 version to someone else? If so, would they pay full price or half price for upgrades? It's probably too complicated and tedious to even try to allow but I was curious.

That got me thinking about packages and the package library. In zMUD once licenses you essentially always had access to the latest version. In CMUD this is not necessarily the case. Now what if I develop a package that uses new 2.0 commands? Would it be my responsibility to put that in the notes of my package description, would it be a property I indicate on the package, or would the Package Library automatically detect and flag this? Does/will CMUD keep an internal registry of what version various commands were introduced in? Will the Package LIbrary allow me to download a 2.0 version package if I'm running a 1.x version?

I know these are offbeat questions, but I'm an offbeat kind of guy. And I'm sure they will come up quite a bit more next year, so it will be good to get them hammered out now. I also realize the timing on this is odd since Zugg or Chiara are off to Sony Fan Faire but it'll give something to think about on the flight instead of a cheesy movie and uncomfortable seats. I'm also curious about what the other forum regulars and guru's think about this.

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 3:21 am

I can't speak for the licensing questions, but I'm fairly sure packages don't track which version of CMUD they were created by. I requested that feature a while back, though, and I think it's on the wishlist.

Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:26 pm

You won't be able to "gift" your previous version. All of your versions and products are managed from your single Zuggsoft Store account. So in order to "give" someone your license key, they would need login access to your Store account. And with that access, there would be nothing stopping them from stealing your latest 3.0 key. You are correct about how the upgrade costs would work, but your friend would need to either buy 3.0 at the full price, or would need to already have a copy of CMUD to qualify for the discounted upgrade.

From a technical perspective, the way major CMUD versions will work is that they will actually be new products in the store. Remember back to when CMUD first came out and we offered discounts for zMUD users. What you did to get CMUD at the discounted price was to log into your Store account, and add CMUD to your shopping cart. The shopping system checked the date of your zMUD purchase to determine the price of the CMUD program.

It will work the same way for new CMUD major releases. You'll log into your Store account and add the new major release (like 3.0 in your example) to your shopping cart. Based upon the purchase date of your existing CMUD license it will determine the cost of the new CMUD program. To run the 3.0 version you'll need a new license key that you get from your Store account by clicking on the 3.0 product and clicking the Retrieve License button.

The only downside to this method is that your CMUD 3.0 key will not work for CMUD 2.x or earlier, since the 3.0 is a different licensed product. To use 2.x you would need to use the license from your Store account for your previous CMUD product version.

I'm not going to do anything like this for the 2.0 release since nobody has had CMUD longer than 2 years yet. So we have until next summer to get all of these details worked out.

Regarding Package versions: right now you just have to note what version of CMUD is required for your package. I plan to add a field to the database where you can list this in the future. As you said, it will become more complicated when not everyone has the same version. Also, the Help Files will have a field for each command and function that lists which version it was introduced in. I might get this added for the 2.0 release, but I'm not sure yet. As I said, none of this matters as much right now since everyone is still getting free upgrades. But in general, there will be an easy way to determine when certain commands and features were added to CMUD.

I doubt I will restrict which packages you can download. Even if a package requires a later version of CMUD, it might still be useful for someone to download it anyway. Perhaps they can modify it to work with their older version of CMUD. But I might display some sort of warning screen.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

Along the same lines, when this starts to be an issue perhaps we can have a %version function that would allow package builders to make a check for compatibility.

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 8:58 pm

%version already exists.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

Yep, I forgot it is in the Predefined Variables. So it should be no problem to use the OnLoad event to make a warning message for the package later when it starts to matter.