Update of old apps

[jbv at souslelogo.com]

Mark,
Thanks for your reply. From the economic side of the client/coder
relationship, that's more or less what I had in mind.
Nevertheless, I would once again like to see the strict technical side
of the problem. And perhaps another way to put it is to ask :
what is the life expectancy of an app developped today with LC 6.6,
especially with all the big changes announced for the near future ?
Of course, future versions of LC will provide backwards compatibility
for both the IDE and the language on one side, and for various OSes
and platforms on which they run on the other side; but when will all
this stop being great features to become a burden, especially
regarding maintenance of the app ? And then, the question of "how's
gonna pay for the upgrade/rewriting" adds another layer to the problem.

One situation might be when a new version of Mac or Win OS requires
recompiling the app with the latest LC version and doesn't lead to a 100%
bug-free standalone (which BTW can be caused either by non-compatibility
with original coding options, or by bugs in the latest LC engine)...
I'm afraid the final answer might be a case-by-case decision; but I still
wonder if any of you has already faced the problem and how it was
solved.

Thanks,
jbv


>
>
> I think this is very on topic.  The answer may differ depending from
> contracting projects to products/services one sells broadly to more than
> one end user.
>
> If this is a contract situation, I would contact the companies you work
> with and actively offer upgrades to their software.  I would know
> everything possible about their industry and provide strong points that
> would interest them in hiring you to update their software package.  You
> might even look into a yearly support option for clients that use your
> software in mission critical environments.  Casual users of your software
> will not desire this though.
>
> If a client calls and requests something new, I would call that a billable
> item.  If they find a bug in your software you have the option to generate
> good will and fix it for free or offer them a reasonable rate to fix the
> issue if you think it warrants charging.
>
> I don’t there there are hard rules here. You have to gauge each situation
> individually.  Considering the long term value of your decision is helpful
> in determining whether to charge or not.  I hope this helps a bit with
> your decision.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Mark Talluto
> CanelaSoftware.com
> LiveCloud.io
>
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