Price AD

[olkipukki]

Also, "being under radar" means "being invisible, hidden from sight". I suspect that you intended the opposite meaning.

Yes, indeed! 

[ajawamnet]

Ok - so, let's see what the guys that did the first shrinkwrap for Job and Wozniak  state about licenses...

Info on Fenwick

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenwick_%26_West
 where it states:

"Apple Computer: Apple was a very early client of the firm; the firm advised Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak on the incorporation of the company and also advised Apple on the creation of the first shrinkwrap license agreement in 1976.[19][20]"


http://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Patent_Licensing.pdf
Check out page 9:

"Licensor and Licensee Restrictions
While United States law generally leaves licensors and licensees unfettered in drafting
agreements as they see fit, the law does impose some limitations. These limitations
primarily prevent licensors from imposing terms in license agreements that are thought to
be contrary to public policy. For example, antitrust laws prevent licensors from requiring
licensees to purchase staple articles of commerce as a condition to obtaining a license to
patented technology. The motivation for such restriction is to prevent the licensor from
unduly expanding the market power conferred by the patent grant to effectively also control
unattended goods. Similarly, the doctrine of patent misuse is applied in certain situations
where a licensor imposes license fees that do not change as patents for the licensed
technology expire."

Also the section above it on Quiet Enjoyment - ya know - the bare minimum  a slumlord has to give his section 8 tenants:

"“Quiet Enjoyment”
Licensees, having paid for the right to use licensed technology, generally seek to ensure that
nothing interferes with the benefits they have received. For example, licensees are concerned
with their ability to obtain assistance from the licensor in fixing defects that are discovered in
the technology, to have the right to fix the defects themselves if the licensor is unable to do
so, to obtain periodic upgrades and other maintenance services from the licensor, to transfer
their rights if they sell their business and to continue enjoying the technology even if the
licensor becomes bankrupt."

[Elasia]

+1 for blueskull when dealing with major packages.. its really software industry wide.  They typically dont care if you are a small shop of just a handful.. you can even still haggle with them just make sure you got whatever in writing.  Beyond that though sometimes its either legal, prestige to impress customers, or related reasons beyond just paying for software that is your bread winner.

Most of the legalese in those license write ups is more about targeting specific groups which tend to be larger outfits that should be paying hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars but are not and are making a killing off the use of the software.  Also a lot of them have audit clauses specifically for this reason.. a lot of the time a place may over use the same license just due to ignorance not actually intending to pirate.

As far as altium goes I just got a nice renewal rate out of them so good for awhile once again.. kinda pissed off some functions i use are broke in AD21 atm though but the 365 bit isnt that bad to have.. kinda easy to show things to clients in the age of covid with less hassle.  I would like if they got off their ass with AD21 and put in some decent SI now that they are finally working on that bit.. still no substitute for other packages SI though probly for another year or two

[PlainName]

some functions i use are broke in AD21 atm

Which are those? I have 21 download ready to install, but would rather keep a working setup if something important is broken.

[Bud]

Also, "being under radar" means "being invisible, hidden from sight". I suspect that you intended the opposite meaning.

Yes, indeed! 

"Being On radar" then 

[Gerhard_dk4xp]

If you have a working solution, keep that very carefully.

I had AD20 crash today on a board that could not be more harmless.
The error message was "x2.exe does not work anymore",  in German,
so the message is probably from my Win7. Googling around showed
that most probably a re-install was needed.
( The AD error window showed that it followed a nil-pointer.)

So I installed a fresh AD21. You can install it either over the old version
(bad idea) or in parallel. First I tried to store the shared documents folder
on D:\. The Installer mangled that to something like \\?\d:\Altium\shared....
which did not work. I definitely do not want user data on C: if I can
avoid it.
Second try with defaults seemed to work; when done it asked: run AD21?
I typed Y and AD21 died on the spot.

I called it up once more and this time it worked. It seems, another few things
have changed, but I could do my corrections on some 5 traces and store that.

I opened another unimportant project just to play around and Kaboom! it crashed.
On the spot.

I had still the VMware machine with AD16 from before the "UPGRADE" in summer,
started it and everything worked smoothly.

It seems that my relationship with Altium since P99 is rapidly approaching it's end.

Gerhard

... and it's funny if you want to store your project's state and you are answered
with "sorry, I can't do that because of an uncompleted command - should I store
your project's state instead?" (Doesn't work either)

And if I send a crash report, I don't expect any follow up. It's Altium, after all.

 

[PlainName]

Ouch! I'll remain a bit lazy then, thanks

[Elasia]

You might try setting up a fresh vm with the latest W10 20H2, they both seem fine as far as files go with that.  My own issues are with the bom, supplier data isnt being pulled in correctly and barfing at me.. more of an annoyance than show stopper.. it just thinks every supplier is invalid and risky

[PlainName]

I tend not to use VMs for real work, and certainly not W10.

[olkipukki]

I opened another unimportant project just to play around and Kaboom! it crashed.

I just opened a few projects in 21, looks okay.

As usual, I have installed 21 as a new separate installation (never do major update!) and don't import previous settings as well as don't share folder with previous versions.

[asmi]

I will add another one into AD21 bugs collection - paste layer is not properly displayed for pads.

[asmi]

That was quick - Altium acknowledged the bug and moved it to "in development" status. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

[olkipukki]

That would be the miracle if they will fix it quickly.

[asmi]

That would be the miracle if they will fix it quickly.

I'm hopeful - this bug is clearly a regression because previous version didn't have this problem, so the fix should be fairly straightforward.

[E-Design]

I will add another one into AD21 bugs collection - paste layer is not properly displayed for pads.

This isnt some obscure, difficult to reproduce bug.
To me it is astonishing on how each major version of Altium, they seem to break FUNDAMENTAL basic things like in your example. It is as if there is no regression testing or software quality control whatsoever. 

It is the reason myself and many others just stay away from these new releases for a long time. Its recommended unless you would like to be Altiums quality control working for free.

The fix might be straightforward. This is likely the case for most bugs. These kind of basic bugs though, should never be re-created to begin with let alone make it to the public release only to have many many users wasting their own time on it.

[asmi]

That would be the miracle if they will fix it quickly.

They've fixed the bug in 21.0.9.