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Comment by charrondev | Hacker News Reader

> While many (or even most) photographers have embraced the switch to paying a subscription in exchange for having always-up-to-date apps, some photographers have still been holding out and riding their perpetual versions for as long as possible.

While I feel for the people in the former camp, it’s an interesting conundrum.

Should a company be forced to pay a license for external IP in perpetuity because they once sold licenses the way Adobe did?

If so that will likely only force more businesses down the rabbit hole of subscription services.

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They shouldn't be including expiring software in something that they sold as perpetual.

This sounds like a class-action waiting to happen. Your users bought your software with a specific usecase and premise, and it stopped working.

Completely agree. They essentially sold something they didn’t have the rights to.

Years ago a software contractor in the UK got a criminal conviction for putting a hidden time lock in software he wrote. His intention was not to cause harm, merely to ensure he got paid.

This ought to be treated as a criminal matter. Of course it won't be.

If you're selling a perpetual license obviously you need perpetual licenses for all your dependencies.

Licensing and support seem reasonable to separate out.

Something like this sounds totally reasonable to me (I've just written this for the sake of discussion):

This product utilizes services that may cease to function in the future; if they cease to function prior to X we will repair them.

It would end up being a bad thing for everybody if it isn't possible to limit future support (as part of the initial transaction).

The face recognition sounds like it isn't a service, just a library that was only licensed for five years.

Right, so just put software and services in the paragraph. I doubt this is the license in question, but the warranty terms here https://labs.adobe.com/technologies/eula/lightroom.html are Adobe warrants to the individual or entity that first purchases a license for the Software for use pursuant to the terms of this agreement that the Software will perform substantially in accordance with the Documentation for the ninety (90) day period following receipt of the Software when used on the recommended operating system and hardware configuration.

Which isn't a whole lot better than "good luck".

Having the license to a nonessential component expire should not cause the full software package to crash.

> Should a company be forced to pay a license for external IP in perpetuity because they once sold licenses the way Adobe did?

This shouldn't require a perpetual license. Adobe should have been able to license the software for as long as they were selling Lightroom 6, with the license expiring when they ceased sales.

This, of course, assumes a sane license. Something is profoundly wrong with your licensing terms if they require the addition of a timed killswitch hidden in software installed on customers' devices.

"with the license expiring when they ceased sales."

So the customer, who bought the thing - a binary code that runs on a computer - has to stop using it when the vendor decides?

This is why I am a Free Software advocate, one reason among many

>Should a company be forced to pay a license for external IP in perpetuity because they once sold licenses the way Adobe did?

Companies shoud mark it with huge red warning letters when they have a time-limited licensed tech in a product they sell you a "perpetual" license for.

I read it as "should business be responsible for decisions it makes" or "should a business satisfy its contractual obligations". I feel it simplifies the matter greatly.

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