Why is LabVIEW 2009 SP1 not a free upgrade?

[Michael.Proctor]

Why is LabVIEW 2009 SP1 not a free upgrade?

I just bought and installed LV 2009 with f2 patches, struggling like many others with bugs.

Now a few weeks later there is SP1. 

It seems odd that National Instruments charges for significant bugs fixes.

I can understand charging for significant new features - but year after being charged for bug fixes.

It takes a lot of work to upgrade then verify the code still works and yet...

From Microsoft I still get free patches to their Office 2004 and most other software I can think, I am not asking for that much backward support,

but since LV 8 it is becoming increasingly disappointing with NI's bug fix policy.  

Is the message:  Help to debug the beta THEN wait two years before purchasing to make sure you are not being double charged?

michael

[Dennis_Knutson]

If you just purchased LabVIEW, then you purchased it with SSP and since you have a valid SSP, the upgrade is free. If you purchased LabVIEW since last August, your SSP will still be active this August and you will get LabVIEW 2010 for free. If you chose the default purchasing option of 2 years of SSP, you will get free updates for the following year.

[battler.]

I think that if NI are trying to get users to revert to using Visual Studio by charging for service packs and changing versions every year, they are going about it the right way.

[Dennis_Knutson]

As already explained, the service pack is free and the fact that new versions come out each year that keep making me more and more productive compared to text based languages is what makes LabVIEW so attractive to me. I think it's much better to be given the option to upgrade each year than to be not given the option.

[battler.]

"I think it's much better to be given the option to upgrade each year than to be not given the option." 

lol I'm sorry but that is a ridiculous statement.

[battler.]

What happens to the support of LV 2009?  What if (another) major bug is found?  NI will force us to upgrade to get it fixed.  That is not fair.

LV is too expensive to upgrade every year.

Anyway.. that's my opinion.

[Dennis_Knutson]

BS. You would much rather be stuck with old tools year after year? I have the option to upgrade to the latest version or not. That is a decision I make on the current and existing projects. If there are features in a new release that make me more productive, I will use the latest release as soon as I can. I will not necessarily upgrade old projects because they are working. We have old code that is basically in maintenance release and use 8.5. A slightly newer project was written with 8.6 but there is little reason to upgrade that because it is also working and no reason to upgrade. A new project will use 2009 because there are features there that I can use. If there weren't I would not upgrade but at least I have that choice. You always have the choice to use the latest or not. If you choose to leave the latest version on the shelf and wait for the next version, fine. If the upgrade cycle for new features was every 3 to 4 years, I think my choices are more limited. How is that a bad thing?

Edit - Yes, SSP costs every year but not paying it will cost you much more in the long run. It's really a small cost compared to what companies pay for support for other products. I've seen IT budgets for all of the business tools that every uses and I have to laugh when someone says LabVIEW support is costly.

Message Edited by Dennis Knutson on 03-17-2010 10:26 PM

[RavensFan]

What's wrong?  Why has your attitude turned negative again lately?

Besides Microsoft, what other software companies do you know that give free upgrades or bug patches?

I would say the only reason that Microsoft does it (and even they have stopped supporting older versions of Windows and office) is because they are pretty much obligated to.  They have such a huge market share, the world is basically run on Microsoft Windows and Office.  And as far as I know, the only upgrades and bug fixes they offer for free are related to security holes that are discovered.  They really haven't gone back to fix any functional bugs like some ones in Microsoft Excel that give different answers to linear regression solving depending on which version of Office you run.

If they didn't patch Windows and Office for security loopholes, their huge market share would begin to drop.  And if you thought they were getting sued a lot now for monopoly issues  ....

Message Edited by Ravens Fan on 03-18-2010 12:28 AM

[battler.]

No BS.

I have no problem with people who want to upgrade every year, though I highly doubt they need to.

The problem I have is that NI is no longer going to continue to support and to fix 2009.

I was fine with 7.1.

The engineers and scientists like me whom opt to use LV are less likely to need to be at the cutting-edge of IT developments.

[rolfk]

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battler. wrote:

No BS.

I have no problem with people who want to upgrade every year, though I highly doubt they need to.

The problem I have is that NI is no longer going to continue to support and to fix 2009.

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This has been like that since about LabVIEW was released for multiplattforms (LabVIEW 3.0 in 1992/1993). Once a new LabVIEW release came out (anything which changes the version number up to and including the 3 digits, not bug fix releases with the f in it) there were no fixes released to earlier versions anymore with the exception of maybe one or two cases. So there hasn't been much of a change in that.

Is it a problem? Yes I see two major areas. One is hobbiest who want to be at the cutting edge but can't afford to buy new versions all the time and the other are heavily regulated industries where changing to a newer LabVIEW version is often not an immediate option, since every single piece in the software chain has to be revalidated again. On the other hand, I would never start using an x.0 version in such a project but always use a version that has proven itself for some time. You do loose possible enhancements in newer versions but you know what you can do with the old version and where to watch out.

It's very simple and as almost anywhere else: you can't have the cake and the money and eating the cake too.

Maybe this outrage about this could be also a fallout of the new version naming 

Before there was LabVIEW 8.5 then 8.5.1 then 8.6 and then 8.6.1. Very few found it odd that 8.6.1 would need a valid support contract to continue to use it. Now there is 2009 and then 2009 SP1 and everybody gets in a panic that SP1 does require a new activation and can't just be installed over an existing non SP1 system. This has been like that since about 8.2.