So my qns is .......... will the current owners of VB license and VB Blog license be entitled to upgrade for free until their license expires?

Show me where the agreement says that vb is for x amount of time and where it says future versions free for a time any time frame.



and IPB does have a test site you can use and play with, I setup one up tonight and was very impressed.

No, actually. What I said was that I am quite happy with the overall bundling, even though there are features that I won't use.

You can see it as me being happy paying for things I won't use, if you like, but that's inaccurate. What I am not happy with is the long extended flame-war about vB; it's a very decent product with a great community and great modification possibilities, for quite a low price compared to other comparable software.

Can you point to some massive price rise in vB which should make me disatisfied and feel like I'm getting a raw deal? So far, it's all only pure speculation, isn't it?


Except of course Windows has never stated ""all future versions of Windows will be free for 10 years", and vBulletin has never stated ""all future versions of vB will be free for 10 years".

So your objection doesn't make much sense to me.

I understand your frustration, but I think you're overly exaggerating the difficulties.

vB are under no obligation to look after the interests of third-party add-on sales; vB's obligation is to its own customers and its own software.

Equally, you could stay with Windows 3.11 and never never pay a cent for upgrades. Your choice.

You cannot blame Microsoft for coming out with Win98, and Win2000, and WinXP, and charging more for them though.

I disagree with your conclusion and your views. As simply another vB customer.

And I've bought now-obsolescent third-party add-ons too. I was one of the first to buy vBlogetin and install it; and now it's defunct, and vB have their own blog system. That's how the cookie crumbles, and I see no reason for me to +++++ about it; I've had a pretty fair deal overall on most things vB and vB-associated.

So... in theory, I wasted my money buying blog & tools? :D

That's easy. From the vBulletin license agreement:
Now show me where it says future versions are not free?
At the time I bought my license, there was mentioned that it was lifetime and there was something about upgrades in there as far as I remember. Or I must be terribly wrong.
Could also be this was mentioned in a pre-sales question thread.

Well it doesn't say they will give you a free corvette either but it's not happening... lol

Correct, but if it would be limited to 1 version, it should state so, and it doesn't. So in a legal way, you are entitle to all versions for the license you have bought.

If you feel that whatever action vB takes violates your agreement with them, then you're free to take them to court.

Me, I'm looking forward to the release of vB 4.0 Suite!

If you buy something , the seller is legally bound to stand by the sales description, or contract, no? Of course they are.
All you have to do is upgrade (or extend) your license to see the description which states that you will continue to have access to the members area where you can download future versions of vBulletin, while this is current.

I don't know the exact wording, they will no longer (obviously) allow people to renew over a certain period of time (ie: if you have more than a year on the license left, you have to wit till just under a year) to do it, but as of a few days ago, that's EXACTLy what it said. The same goes for the blog:

So, somewhere, IB is planning on royally screwing their customers.



LOW price? Are you kidding me? $200 is a "low price"? For $200, I can get software to run my entire computer, two of them even. Low price?? That's hardly the case


Not speculation at all. If you want to keep your head buried in the sand, that's ok, but it's certainly not speculation. Since IB has taken the product over, they've done nothing but raise prices, fire staff (or cause them to leave) and act unprofessional, tearing the vBulletin name apart. At one time, it was a great name, now it's just garbage, because of IB.


You're not understanding the example, and that's just fine. No, you're right, windows has never stated that, but vBulletin HAS. Not in that exact wording, of course, but in the sales contracts that IB/Jelsoft MUST honor.

I certainly can, if microsoft said "you get these versions free during your upgrade period", which is exactly what IB has stated.



We don't know that exactly, but the likelyhood is pretty high that, yes, that is the case. We do know that work on external stuff (blog, PT) has ceased, we do NOT know what they plan on doing with those of us dumb enough to believe IB's lies (and yeah I said US, I'm in that group as well).

As long as there is also a vb4 forum only option, there is no problem at all.

It would however be the decent way, to give people that already bought the addons, to give the Suit without having them to pay extra. But about that we have to wait until more news is coming to us from Jelsoft.

I wouldn't go that far. Because vBulletin still has it's great name, still is the best forum software around and support is great. But that is to be expected for the price we are paying.
Because I agree with your other arguments.
About good people leaving or being fired, not being cheap etc.

I also look forward to v4 out of curiosity, but people should not act as if it's a cheap software product and things are all fine while the complete company is being rearranged and even the accouncement discussion forum is closed, making it less possible to let the clients know what they think of changes.

One should be a bit more realistic, even if one is a fan of vBulletin software.

The biggest problem at this moment is a lack of communication on Jelsoft's behalve. Price changes should be known already if v4 Suite is coming that soon.
People should be better and earlyer informed by them about changes and things which stay the same.

At this point there is no way of saying if the changes are for the better or worse, we can judge about that after a while of experience with the new owner, but at this point I agree it isn't looking all to good. But that does not prove it's indeed going bad, we have to wait and see. But there -must- be communication.
And the biggest error yet is that there is too much lack of communication. It takes too long and there are too many uncertainties.