Dark Wizard wrote:[...]Like a (real) FTP Client, FTP Search, ZIP, unISO and Checksum, ect.. ect.. similar to what Altap Salamander does (and offers).
Integrated plugin capability is good, obviously, as long as plugins can be enabled/disabled individually, but I can do without if that means the developer needs to spend more time on something that is already comfortably accessible to me through other means. I prefer dedicated tools for specific jobs, I don't want the file manager with its small undeveloped features to manage certain tasks and compete with fully fledged (most often free) solutions. Thus, no matter how good FTP will become in x2, no matter how well it will handle any type of archive, I will still use dedicated applications for that. A file manager should stick to what it is and improve or add features related exclusively to file management and not try to become an all-in-one solution- it doesn't benefit any of us.
Dark Wizard wrote:I do agree at the current price of xplorer2, many won't bother purchasing legally. It doesn't offer enough functionality to outweigh the cost. (xplorer2 2.1.0.1 is available today in the torrents) Ultimate version isn't a priority (I assume) because its the same other then containing a portable version.
I think that is is fair to say that we're here because we tested most of the available file managers and came to the conclusion that x2 better suits our needs and tastes. I know I tested the majority of file managers, and while I've seen exclusive features which I'd like to reach x2 one day, they are all shit in contrast to x2 when it comes to comparing similar characteristics. I simply can't find nor develop with other managers the efficient workflow x2 offers.
That being said, I've never tested Altap Salamander before, so I grabbed a copy of it and began inspecting. First thing I noticed is that it doesn't arrange items in groups, no options for that whatsoever- just like XYplorer, how can a file manager that's supposed to replace Windows Explorer not integrate basic Windows Explorer features, like GROUPING?
Other features? X2 eats them for breakfast. So I guess all the fuss about this Altap Salamander is strongly related to its plugins capability which generates unjust ratings on review sites. You get 38,879 downloads and 5 stars for Salamander on Softpedia, but only 17,570 downloads and 2 stars for X2. That tells a lot about how stupid users are in general, and I'm not basing my statements on my perspective, but on the facts.
Plus, Salamander calls home (at 217.31.53.26, Czech Republic, altap.cz, IGNUM-ALTAP). If x2 were to do that, people would start freaking out, throwing women and children overboard.
And while Salamander is riding the wave on surface, warez sites couldn't give less of a shit about it, and I wouldn't say it's the price in this case.
Kilmatead wrote:Treating "speculation" as fact (just because it satisfies your fears) is not a particularly healthy approach to life, though it does make an already cynical world a worse place to live in, which seems to be what people want out of life anyway these days.
When people come back with evidence that x2 has not been supported/updated with new features, etc, in the future (unrelated to issues of portability, portable licenses or portable working environments) then they may claim the right to whine and complain about happiness and the legal semantics of lifetime licenses. And I will happily agree with them. Until that day, you cannot project your fears (as Nikos stated, "psychological" issues) as some kind of foregone conclusion that the world and its sister is out to screw you over personally.
As has been clarified many times, the Portable aspect of x2 has always been (and always will be) a separately paid product which before now did not even have the aspect of a lifetime license associated with it anyway, so was always repeatedly purchased.
If you do not require the portable aspect of x2 and do not plan on it in the future, you can ignore the existence of the Ultimate version, as it does not change any other aspect of the x2 file management core itself.
I will agree that the term "ultimate" as applied to a product (as opposed to a contract) is misleading in today's expectant culture of businesses lying to the punters about "how different" something is (iPad, anyone?) - but again, until Lifetime xplorer2 Professional License holders have actually been denied an upgrade to a non-portable related functionality, this issue is entirely in your own heads. (And assuming Nikos isn't the devil incarnate, hopefully it will stay in your own heads. On the other hand, if he is actually the devil incarnate, then things could get rather interesting. )
Speaking of speculation... would the Devil actually choose to be Greek? Wouldn't that be a bit too obvious?
Speaking of speculation... with due respect, are your whole discourse / dissertation not based upon speculation? Kilmatead, in particular, you speculate that Nikos will exist another month/year. It's overwhelmingly your own speculation, not fact.
The facts today are: I've already paid twice for the Life Time Upgrades for functionally similar product known as X2. In order to obtain the wholeness of X2 which today is arbitrarily renamed to X2 Ultimate Life Time, I'm required to pay another US$40.
That's not speculation or unfounded fear, with due respect.
While we took a leap of faith in Nikos's honesty, at the end of the day we honest paying loyal users of X2 Lifte Time are accused of whining for free lunches, being further aggravated with insult to injury.
I bought X2 some weeks ago, together with lifetime "assurance". I had used the free version for some months then, and I didn't need any other features than were available there, but I bought in order to show my loyalty. One-way street, now?
a)
In the other, very short thread on this subject, Nikos speaks of 20 dollars update price, not of 40 like in this one, so within some 10 more days, update price has doubled?
viewtopic.php?t=9437 (I'm not allowed to post the internal link)
"nikos
Moderator
Joined: 07 Feb 2002
Posts: 13783
Location: UK
Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:10 am Post subject:
I have explained all this but here we go once again. If you have a lifetime cover for the professional and want to extend it to lifetime for ultimate you need to pay the difference, that is $20"
So is it 20, or is it 40 dollars? If it's 20, let's pay it, and hope for the best; 40 dollars would be rip-off I wouldn't want to pay but forget this experience instead, together with the program, and taking from it "or you screw the developer (when you illegally download or something), or you he'll screw you (when you pay)".
b)
In this thread Nikos speaks of free meals and of slaves. I'm not a programmer, but I know a little bit of logic. So, let me repeat the argument first offered by armsys which goes: "We only took YOUR offer, it was YOUR error or something not to consider that this offer would make you lose your money thereafter.", and second, for logic:
The free meal image is wrong. A lifetime of free meals means the restaurant owner will have to put in extra work and extra money into buying the things from which he'll make those meals, for these persons, again and again, and, if he doesn't cook them personally (the slave aspect), in order to buy the time of his cook, doing these "extra" meals.
Whereas in sw, with automated proceedings for delivery for updates, there is NO EXTRA cost for these free meals, just missing revenu from people not becoming paying customers anymore, but not costing anything. (Speaking of cost for servicing them within the forum? Well, bugs are bugs, and it's irrelevant if freshly paying customers bring up issues, or if they are brought in by old customers not bringing fresh money in anymore: Issues with sw have to be addressed anyway.)
So the real problem is not that we loyal idiots do COST anything, but that we do not bring any fresh money in. But it is dishonest to tell us we cost you, let alone pretending we would like you to make our slave.
c)
There is that Australian competitor, with incredible developers taking incredible amounts of money out of their customer base; this might give (very bad) ideas to their competitors - who don't see that people wanting to be ripped off, could go straight to the Australian venue, without having going by Hellas/London/Ireland (Ireland is another very expensive country for the rest of us).
d)
If you HONORED your "lifetime" customers, this would be KNOWN, like the NOT-honoring of promises made will certainly be known, and about 99 p.c. or more of computer users did not yet buy X2, so there'll be plenty of room for income IF the sw is well developed and enhanced, AND if loyal customers ain't screwed; no need then to make bad income from such manoevers, putting off a lot of potential customers, as no doubt many of us - certainly myself - will spread our experience with X2 all over any forum in the www available as soon as we'll be fed up with this policy.
e)
What's a lifetime licence? Very simple, it's registered to our name: When we'll be dead (I'm not young anymore), our children cannot ask for their names to be written into the "About" info, and we cannot sell the licence either. (Of course, technically, both would be possible, but then, our customer or our heir will eventually be fed up with pretending they are us, and if satisfied with the sw, will happily buy the sw at their own name.)
A lifetime is certainly not a licence for a program "as long as I develop this version xyz, then I won't develop it further, but I'll develop a similar version abc, and xyz will fall into oblivion, so you paid me for a dead horse" - and that's what we see to happen now:
Our "prof. version" was the top version, by its name (there being no dedicated entry version), and we paid for a lifetime assurance for exactly that. Now it's got to be the entry level version, that will be developed in a way to cope with new Windows versions and to (hopefully) eliminate bugs, and that will almost be it: Any new smart feature will go into the "Ultimate" version, as Nikos will try to have a max of people to buy that one.
f)
This is understandable, for new customers. But for the existing lifetime customers, 40 dollars upgrade to the new situation is NOT acceptable, whereas 20 dollars (remember, it's always PLUS (for most of us about) TWENTY PERCENT VAT within Europe!) upgrade would be not pleasant, BUT acceptable in the end, so that we could BURY this subject, instead of BECOMING ENEMIES.
So is it 20 dollars (see a), or 40? If it's 40 now, will it be 80 next year, since it was 20 ten days ago. Is Nikos' word for anything worth anthing, or not any more?
g)
If this was an American venue, by the legal affairs potentially arising from this zabkat could become bankrupt. But in good old Europe, honest people are screwed?
Again, make it 20 dollars, and leave us alone for the next 5 years or so, doing good developing work, and it'll be "acceptable". But not this way. We didn't buy from the Australians for a reason, but if we are as badly treated here, we perhaps prefer their offering.
And forget we're asking for the "free meals" we paid for (too few bucks, after yours): We don't cost you anymore... if treated well (and could do a lot of good advertizing for you, as well as the contrary).
We DON'T EAT FROM YOU, Nikos. We're customers HAVING PAID for your offering you now consider slave work.
Reconsider. Take 20 dollars from us, our governments taking another 4 dollars, and let's bury this. Or do you really want war?
Hi expensivegreece,
The following is the original email reply from Nikos.
Strictly from the horse's mouth: the cost for upgrading X2 Life Time to Ult Life Time is US$40.
Subject: RE: Ult Life-Time Upgrade from Pro Life-Time
Anyway what I am trying to say is that the ultimate upgrade is $20 and the lifetime cover EXTENSION is another $20. I am not sure which one you don't need
At any rate if you don't want to pay extra, you can always remain with the professional version you bought
... So, let me repeat the argument first offered by armsys which goes: "We only took YOUR offer, it was YOUR error or something not to consider that this offer would make you lose your money thereafter.", and second, for logic:...
Have Nikos ever allowed Pro Life Time paying users a fair and just chance to discourse the pricing issue? The whole pricing policy and renaming ploy were unilaterally imposed by Nikos. Hence, the paying users' expectation in accordance with Nikos' written/advertised promise of Life Time Upgrade should not be blamed.
We appreciate Nikos genuine laborious hard work in creating a finest masterpiece of software. We resent Nikos' dishonesty in deceiving his loyal customers with a Life Time Upgrade promise which will never be honored at its face value to the end.
Hi, armsys. By "repeat armsys' argument" I meant, of course, "back it up wholeheartedly, before I develop an even stronger one" - because this must be made totally evident, we're NOT "abusing" Nikos' presumed naïveté, Nikos got a lot (in my case, just weeks ago) of money UPFRONT from his scheme (which is not there anymore, of course, and well, Germans paid a lot of money for Greece, all of which is gone forever now, so they ask for more, and more, and more...), with the only disadvantage for him to not make us pay afterwards for updates... so he's MAKING us pay for updates with his manoeuvering, and so the question is, HOW MUCH: are we totally ripped off (paying more than we would have paid for the Australian sw), or are we ripped off by a minor amount we could accept in the end, in order to clear this issue from our mind.
But, armsys, you say Nikos has made you pay twice in the past, these 20 or 40 or whatever dollars now (or next year, as soon as the orphaned state of our "Prof" version becomes apparent) making it thrice.
Could you relate the details of your past experience, or give the link where you detailed it? Since, in the end, if Nikos made you pay twice in the past, it seems this is his normal behavior, and we all lost our money here? I certainly would not have spent my money just weeks ago if I had know that. Is your experience something not totally "Nikos at fault, customer's money stolen" - and in this case, why did you stay altogether, throwing good money after bad money -, but, as I very much hope, something of "shades of grey"?
Please tell your whole story or refer the link where it is told, I'm sure many a customer wants to read it in detail. (Since it will predict what'll be awaiting us here.)
armsys wrote:On Oct 16, 2011 I took a leap of faith in Nikos to pay US$42 for upgrading my Xplorer2 Life time (bought on Jan 3, 2006) to Xplorer2 Pro Life Time. Now Nikos expects me to pay another US$40 for upgrading my Xplorer2 Pro Life Time to Xplorer2 Ult. So within 5 months, I've to pay US$82 for the functionally similar Xplorer2 Ult.
That's a true story how Nikos punishes his loyal paid users.
XYPlorer Life Time costs me only US$69.95 and runs faster and more robustly than Xplorer2. Above all, I can develop my own UDCs and scripts on XYPlorer. XYPlorer never plays renaming tricks.
Back in 2006, no X2 Life Time users were told of there will be X2 Pro 5 years later. Whether it's called Pro or Ult, they are functionally similar, save the protability.
Last edited by armsys on 2012 Mar 28, 11:09, edited 1 time in total.
For Life Time Upgrade, most software develoeprs over the world honor their promise, with Nikos being the only notable exception.
For example, on Jul 15, 2006, I paid for the license of Total Recorder 6.0 Today I still recevie free upgrades from Higher Criteria, publisher of Total Recorder.
Hello armsys,
Thank you for your citation from this thread which I had read but without memorizing. I'm bewildered: Have there been THREE versions of X2 just weeks ago, the free one (we all know), a standard (FROM which you upgraded), and a "professional" (TO which you upgraded)? Do you remember the respective prices, perhaps even together with their respective lifetime upgrade assurances?
IF there were 3 versions (I said I'm not young, but my memory fails are aggravating it seems), these current manoeuvers were even more unacceptable since we didn't buy the (existing) standard version, but the higher-priced prof. version then, so the vanishing of the standard version, together with the introduction of an "ultimate" version, makes the "prof" version the standard version even now, i.e. it's not just the addition of a "superior" version, but a CURRENT DOWNGRADING of our version. I'm thinking of a criminal offence or something even for now, not just with future orphaning of our version, i.e. I'm asking myself, isn't there a LAW against being treated this way, even for now, let alone further mistreatments in the future?"
So there was an intermediate version then, from which you upgraded? Anybody having stored the comparative table that must have been on zabkat's site then? Could become highly interesting in the end!
(When I deal with my potential enemies, I store screenshots of evidence, and now I'm asking for such here - it's incredible. I very well know that racist prejudices are evil... but before buying the prof. version, I considered my prejudices, was ashamed of them, and paid the money... and now I'm saying... but I should have known beforehand, what a fool I have been to NOT let me guided by what I felt / feared at that moment.)
The more cynical you are, the less they can have you. Is it OUR naïveté the real subject here, not Nikos' naïveté vs. his own promises he made us pay for?
So, if there were 3 versions, not just 2 as I had thought, technically speaking, the first time, Nikos did NOT really steal your money, but the current manoeuver becomes all the more inacceptable, that's for sure.
At the end of the day, Nikos just falls 1 inch SHORT of real theft, but are we allowed to say, well, it's the Greek way, then, and we should have known better? Is it really necessary to fulfill all those nasty prejudices people might have, to their full extent, instead of proving those nasty prejudices wrong?
Hello armsys,
I suppose censorship will intervene shortly, but then, the last sentence of my last post is the thing to consider. Some people DO have prejudices, based on (in my case) former experience, AND people do OVERCOME these prejudices, hoping for the best, and if all goes well, they reconsider their prejudices, and in the end, those prejudices will vanish.
Or it's the other way round, every time people overcome their prejudices they get screwed anew, which has been my recurrent experience with the Mediterranean basin, especially the South-East side of it, and you say, any other DO honor their promises in this respect, whilst Nikos doesn't. Well, just days ago, I bought, for a lot of money, defunct software on ebay, but without knowing it was "educational software" - the vendor, from an South-East Mediterranean country whilst living in the US, did not bother to tell prospective buyers that detail.
So, I don't even get the (technically possible) update from (bought, and bug-ridden) version 11.0 to (last and technically available) version 11.02, and on top of that, being a non-student, my use of the student version is illegal: The South-East mediterranean vendor achieved making me a criminal... or I dump the sw altogether, will have lost the total amount of my money.
Etc., etc. - my life is full of such experiences, most of the time with that geographic region's people.
Let's make a test if (all of) you are "morally better" than I am: Let's consider somebody from NIGERIA offers a lifetime update assurance. You cannot stop laughing at such a proposition, instead of "buying" it?
Well, we just proved that some experience is valid, and whenever you "overcome" your corresponding fears, your'e a "good guy", which means being a fool.
All the more so, the need for Nikos to prove us wrong, but he proves us right, for the time being.
Let's pay 20 dollars, and Nikos will come and make us pay 20 dollars anew in 5 years, but that will be acceptable.
It will be a mitigated experience we can live with. Being ripped off of 40 dollars now, and surely another 40 dollars in 5 years, or even sooner, will prove us we'd better had bought DirectoryOpus in the first place.
Hello Ineedhelp,
You state,
"I think that is is fair to say that we're here because we tested most of the available file managers and came to the conclusion that x2 better suits our needs and tastes."
Sorry, but let's face it, there ARE considerable price differences among those competing file commanders, and I bought TWO "lifetime" licenses and a "normal" one (but which for the time being is similar to such a thing): XY, X2, TC.
Why? Because I tried more than a dozen, then saw that not one will ever be perfect, and I said to myself, with lifetime licenses, I'll be assured that I'll never need anything else, for FileM, since at least one of these 3 will give me the feature I'll need. (I even use FC a lot, even most of the time, i.e. the free thing, when I own 3 paid competitors...)
The other alternative for me would have been to purchase DO, but I feared its price. My (false, as I see now) assumpton was, paying for 3 different FileM's would not total DO's price alone, which, if prices were similar, I'd largely preferred above any of the 3 I bought.
So now I feel cheated here, since my calculation, based upon clear promises that evidently won't be stuck to, has been proved mistaken. I'm a German businessman, and I can assure you that IMPLICIT assertions, in Germany, to be observed altogether, are the very BASE of German business. We do NOT try, in our majority, to be smartasses who tell our customers, after payment, "well, you just had to read my contract more thoroughly, I didn't explicitly promised you this and that, that were only your assumptons on what you thought was reasonable at that time" - German business functions the other way round: Contract are for the worst case, and honest behavior is omnipresent in order to avoid that worst case, and nobody has to cite from a contract - except for dishonest people trying to make a fast euro, then take a deep dive.
So, let me be frank: Expecting the other side to stuck to explicit and implicit assertions is NOT considered foolishness in Germany, but the base of its economic strength, it's called a measure to "minimize transaction costs", which, for ubiquitous dishonesty, are multiple times those German costs in many other parts of the world.
With a lifetime guarantee, we have a continuous relationship, not a one-time-ripp-off-and-never-see-each-other-again, so some of ours expected to be treated accordingly to that scheme.
And one more thing:
In the other thread cited by me Nikos said, 10 days ago, upgrading from prof lifetime to ultimate lifetime is 20 dollars. Here, we assume it's 40 dollars; in the title of this thread, it's 50 dollars (all plus VAT, which makes it 60; why I insist on VAT, being a businessman? Because I use the FileM's for my biz AND for my private use, and hence dare not recoup the VAT from the authorities, neither the basic costs which are also on my own - crazy? perhaps, yeah, but this way I don't fear the authorities, see).
And as we all know, some people first want 100 dollars from you, without any good reason, then are willing to give in, 80 dollars are ok... and so the other party looses from sight that even 50 would be 50 too many, but pays the 80 since it's not 100.
Is it that which is occurring here, folks, it's not 50 plus vat, it's only 40 plus vat, so there's no problem around here?
When in fact people who want portability, should pay 20 dollars for ultimate with portability, whereas all other prof lifetime customers should be "upgraded" to "ultimate" without portability for free, and that's it?
expensivegreece wrote:
...So there was an intermediate version then, from which you upgraded?
My X2 Licensing History
Dec 26, 2005 Xplorer2.........US$25.03
Oct 16, 2011 Xplorer2 lifetime assurance upgrade....US$42.4
The afore-mentioned Dec 26, 2005 invoice shows Nikos' office was located at:
5 Gregorious E' Street
GR 54248 Thessaloniki
Greece
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Suddenly Wed Apr 9, 2008 Nikos changed his upgrade policy:
Dear xplorer² registered customer
version 1.71 has been out for some time and build 1712 is deemed stable for distribution.
xplorer² has improved inside and out! It looks better with custom icons and skins for toolbars (see http://zabkat.com/x2skin.htm) and performs better with webfolders and virtual folders, supports Vista symbolic links, and has better breadcrumb navigation too.
You can find more information in the changelog file within the installation folder and the updated manuals.
As an existing customer you can upgrade free of charge. You don't have to register again, only download and install the latest version "trial" from here: http://zabkat.com/x2down.htm
FUTURE UPGRADE POLICY
------------------------
The upgrade policy is changing. The free updates as administered in the past four years will no longer be. It is most likely that the next xplorer² upgrade will be charged, should you wish to get it. You can protect yourself against future upgrade costs purchasing the free lifetime upgrades guarantee. For more information and ordering please see this page: http://zabkat.com/x2up.htm
Thank you for info given. If I understand well, you first bought X2 in a time when Nikos said, for the time being, upgrades will be free. Then he changed policy, then you bought lifetime assurance. This seems to be perfectly correct, and is the current situation with TC: Upgrades are free, until new order, but we don't have any claim for them to be free.
b)
Little misunderstanding, please comment: Has there an intermediate version in value, some weeks ago or anytime? Free, standard and professional? Or only free and professional (as I had thought before reading you)? If there was an intermediate (value-wise, not timewise) version, Nikos' stance is even unbearable, since we then bought the top version, whereas, if there was only free and professional, we "only" bought the "only" paid version.
c)
I bought X2 and assurance, assuming "zabkat" was "zabkat ltd." and that they had a London office, knowing that many people only have got a "virtual office" there, without any physical presence, but anyway, I had decided to trust Nikos.
Now I see there isn't any virtual London office of a zabkat ltd., there is NO zabkat ltd., zabkat is just a name like "liquidsh*t" or whatever, there is no legal entity behind it. Buying from "zabkat" is buying from Nikos himself, via his third-party payment organization, so our contract is with Nikos, the physical person... in Thessaloniki.
Two alterntives: Nikos wants to hide his income from his authorities at home. and/or: Nikos wants to have an "anglo" image, instead of an "levantine image". I could very well understand BOTH possible reasons for his London postbox with just a free-flowing name, and I sympathize at least with the second one. Given people like me do have prejudices, there are reassured when reading "London", whilst perhaps backing off when reading "Thessaloniki", so I don't criticise Nikos for all these manoevers, would be unfair given my own problems with Greece, etc.
d)
But now we have a situation where Nikos does invent something where our (or my) "levantine fears" are more than activated, so all he has to do, is reassure us - instead of leaving this task to third parties in the thread who speak for Nikos instead of just speaking for themselves - that "ultimate" will NOT contain any new things except for portability features, and that for every other feature, as in the past, our (rather expensive) prof plus lifetime will of course get it, and will not be left out, in favor of "ultimate".
UP TO NOW, HE DID'NT DO THIS.
e)
So it's time for reassuring us.
Even better, take the really smart offering of that other poster who says, rename "ultimate" to "portable" or something, have prof. users decide if they want it or not, charge them 40 bucks if you want for lifetime but with any portable sub-licence to be substracted from those 40 dollars (i.e. if you bought 0 usb stick licences, you'll pay 40 dollars, but only 10 if you bought 3 usb licences in the past, etc.) -
and then, have prof and portable versions EXACTLY the same features, except for portability.
So, where's the problem indeed, except for Nikos' lack of reassuring us with regards to the value of our expensive licence: if it's maintained, no problem whatsoever.
Whereas leaving prof. lifetime customers behind, would be that special "levantine way" we fear, and we hate. It's up to Nikos now to say our / my fear is racist and UNFOUNDED, and everything will be okay again, as far as I'm concerned.
Right?`
(WAS there a standard version, then, or just free and prof, as I, perhaps falsely, remember?)
1. Deprecate Lite to history (ie no more support, no more downloads),
2. Rename Professional as Free (i.e the new Lite).
3. Rename Ultimate as Professional (I'll call it NewPro).
Only add major new features to NewPro, keep Free on life support only.
Make the Portability option a no cost feature of NewPro.
Set the price of NewPro to $45, people who have Ultimate get NewPro license for $0.
People with OldPro with no lifetime warranty pay $35 to upgrade to NewPro.
People with OldPro with lifetime warranty pay between $0 and $20 (depending on purchase date) to upgrade to NewPro.
Scrap lifetime warranty, include 2 years warranty in initial purchase. After that offer extended warranty for an annual fee of $10. If one doesn't take it up then one will pay 2/3 of full price to upgrade to the next new major version - if you skip 2 major versions or more then you will have to pay full price.
Licenses with paid up warranty would get upgrades for free.
I don't pretend to have covered every scenario, and the $'s are off the top of my head. Its just the kernel of an alternative approach to pricing and a means by which nikos might bring this licensing issue to a close and recover some of his lost credibility.
This licensing/warranty/pricing issue been going on since version 2 was announced about 2 years ago. The lack of a satisfactory solution is a factor in me not upgrading, i.e. I'm keeping my powder dry in case I see something that meets this criteria
"The only time to change something is when the cost of doing the same is greater than the cost of doing the change"
If this licensing/warranty issue had been resolved, I might have upgraded to support the developer, even though I see little value in the changes to version 2.0 and beyond. But nikos' continued inability to resolve the commercial issues has disinclined me to do that. Indeed nikos seems to be digging himself a deeper hole and creating even more discontent amongst his existing customers with this latest Ultimate issue (someone should dispossess him of his shovel)
I can't see me ever upgrading X2, having to come to this forum depresses me. Sure I could ignore threads such as this, but even if I don't read them, just seeing them at the top of the list is enough, its like they've been Sticky'd there . If I was in charge I'd create a Licensing Issues section and move relevant threads to it.
RP
Windows 10 Pro (64 bit) version 1809 - Xplorer2 version: Pro 2.5.0.4 [Unicode] x64 2014-06-21
)