I think alot of people look at annual subscriptions as a continuous revenue stream, but accountants also know that making a loss over a few years can be tax efficient tax planning.
No, Donn. It’s not your subscription. SV typically doesn’t leave up downloads for old releases. (So it’s a good idea to download and save any releases even if you’re not going to install them immediately.)
The language you quote has historically meant that the subscription is for “at least” one year’s worth of new stuff. And if that one year period doesn’t include a “major” release then your subscription continues until that “major” release. That’s what Mark was alluding to. I also renewed my subscription in October of 2018 and have been receiving updates since then (the latest having been 13815 on May 16 of this year).
Cheers,
Jane
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Yup, all I got was complete silence from them too! And I don’t think anyone could argue that your suggestion was not more than fair. They took money in good faith and didn’t deliver what was promised. I get that the died in the wool Claroinites have no choice but to either attempt to defend SV, or as most do, just remain silent on the matter, but for anyone (not that I imagine there is anyone) who is thinking of getting started with Clarion, they deserve to know who and what they are dealing with!
You can’t be bothered summarizing it but you’ll write another 5 paragraphs defending Clarion 
What Bruce said about Clarion is correct, but the topic here was the Community Version. Obviously if you’ve been using Clarion for the past 40 years you’ll be approaching retirement age and couldn’t really give a fig about the future of the product. But there can be no future for a product that isn’t gaining new users faster than it’s losing them. Perhaps Bob Z is in the same camp as the old guard. In other words, so long as the money keeps ticking over until retirement, it’s all good. But maybe spare a thought for your customers who would have to start from scratch once you retire and leave them with some clunky, 32-bit Windows 3.1 looking app, developed in a programming language nobody has heard of since disco went out of fashion, entirely reliant on one man who is determined to take Clarion to the grave.
Why do you think I’m so critical? To laugh at people, or because I wish that Bob Z would wake up and allow Clarion to get back to a place where it’s actually a credible alternative? There’s a lot of smart people still involved with Clarion who have the potential to make it something great, but there’s only so much one can do while Bob Z owns it.
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Considering it’s now a one man show without even a rented office, I think it would cost more than you could ever hope to get back!
I learnt a long time ago, the law is an intellectual criminal’s weapon using the power of words.
Why even bother? Whats the fascination with mon(k)ey (tokens)? Its hardly going to compensate you for your life being stolen is it?
Good point about “retirement age” but I think there is still a lot WE can do to get more people to use Clarion. It don’t think SV would be against providing licenses for classroom use of Clarion. I’m just not sure if anyone has tried.
Community Edition: covered at 29:01: https://youtu.be/5OmUAUcJSrw?t=1740
I found it by searching the transcript on YouTube.
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I had a connection with a University a few years back, but sadly not any more. Having said that, Universities are often open to using archaic and unusual programming languages, so it would certainly be worth a try. Other avenues are no doubt available, but gosh it’s a hard sell with no trial/community edition and the website doing the worst possible sales job imaginable. I just really hate to see such a great concept potentially die on the vine, when it needn’t. But boy oh boy SV does not make things easy!
I had no idea there was even a transcript option! You learn something new every day!
So no Community Edition because there isn’t proper Unicode support… Hmm… I reckon there’s probably a bunch of other things that would put people off more than that, but maybe that’s just me. I fully agree that if you’re going to put something out there for the masses to see, you obviously want to put your best foot forward. I just worry that there will always be a reason “not to” do it, because there will always be something that be improved or added. I’m often guilty of doing this myself, and I can say from personal experience that it’s probably the biggest way to ensure that a product fails – yes, even bigger than releasing a Community Edition with no Unicode support!
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Having no Unicode support limits the scope of the free product by making sure anything produced is limited to just the ANSI country code, especially as Unicode is something that people want in todays global world.
An Ansi community version gives a taste of what the product is capable of, without giving everything away for free.
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But many here have stated that if Clarion was no longer developed today it wouldn’t affect their business and they could carry on using it, as it stands, for the foreseeable future. So if complete Unicode support is not required by all the current Clarion users, surely there must be potential new users for whom the template system would be revolutionary, and complete Unicode support far less important.
To the powers that be (not mentioning any names because apparently you’re not allowed to even though it’s hard not to when you’re referring to a one-man-show) - stop making excuses and either proudly stand behind your product, or give somebody else a go!
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Do I take it that everybody here is embarrassed by Clarion, because it seems that having an open and frank discussion is, clearly, verboten? If the owner of Clarion who shall remain nameless, nor the Clarion community can handle even the smallest of criticism (which was meant in nothing other than a constructive “just get on with it” kind of way), then I have to say that never releasing a Community Edition is absolutely the best way forward (or backward, as the case may be!)
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I am not embarrassed by doodley squat, but your trollish drunk uncle discourse is not useful to anybody.
This site is for helping each other out.
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Even I get censored for pointing out the elephant in the room.
This post No one has the right to prevent the clarion from popularizing and perfecting itself over time is in response to that censorship and my post being removed. You are not alone.
Anyway I’ll be long gone before its ever released, as I’ll be finding out just how criminal the UK really is. Its my birthday surprise to the criminals that run the UK, thats unless I dont end up like Daniel Morgan.
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I don’t detect any embarrassment in the Clarion community, only frustration (like yourself) that Clarion is not properly marketed, bugs are ignored, and a basic Clarion app looks like it was designed for Windows 3.1
My learning experience in 2019 wasn’t great, given that the documentation is still referring to Clarion 7. Which is why I rewrote the Getting Started and Learning Clarion stuff for C11.
I’m used to the “it’s not a proper database” propaganda because I use Microsoft Access when I’m not using Clarion. I like both, but for different reasons. And when you add all the NetTalk stuff to C11 it is really powerful.
There are plenty of examples of open and frank discussions about the future of Clarion on this forum. I have found this discussion particularly interesting, since I nearly purchased the .NET version, until I found out on this forum and discovered it was vapourware.
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Purely out of curiousity - Is this actually possible?
'twould seem so:
Vapo(u)rware is SOOO commonplace, Donn!
One of my favo(u)rite headlines from the 80s:
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Another SV web site relic, along with exciting announcements like Clarion running on the latest Pentium processors?
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I was also tempted to purchase clarion net, and I refrained due to the comments in the newsgroups. But, what would you get if you actually purchase it today ??