I missed the original discussion and I had a real good flame to add to this thread, but IE6 hiccupped and I lost it.

Basically, I feel I am paying for an incremental change to a product that I already own the rights to use. I am not paying for the whole product and should not be expected to pay the whole price.

I cannot afford to nor will my clients pay for me to upgrade all the apps I have out there every time MS comes out with an upgrade. My freinds working in small businesses aren't going to convert all their apps overnight to install an upgrade, so they won't legally qualify either.

Every version of any major software product has bugs. Some of those bugs get fixed by updates, but as we all know, many don't get fixed until the next release. This means that to get the fixes to bugs in features I've already paid for, I have to pay again. That's bad enough, but now I am expected to pay full price for those fixes to features I already paid for!

So what is the purpose of an upgrade? Bottom line is that, with this policy, upgrades are meaningless and worthless. Unless, of course, we break the rules.

(But then, judging by their latest licensing program, MS seems bent on eliminating upgrades and one-time license fees anyway.)

As far as subscribing to MSDN is concerned, that's a nice idea and I might just be able to afford to do that this year. But I don't work for a Fortune 1000 company nor do I charge six figure fees to corporate clients. I work with small businesses, tightly bugeted educational institutions and non-profit institutions. I cannot afford to casually drop $10,000+/year on subscriptions to MSDN, TechNet, and magazines & books, plus workshops and conferences all over the country. That's not 5% of my income; its more like 25%. I have to keep a tight budget. Spending an extra $300 on a full version doesn't sound like much to folks with six figure family incomes, but to me it feels like another unfair gouge.