🚀 go-pugleaf

(Now crossposted as it seemed relevant.)

In message <bf3IrQHo8rTOFwpI@jhall.demon.co.uk.invalid>, John Hall 
<nospam_nov03@jhall.co.uk> writes:
>In article <SWJ0IBfXxgTOFw5f@soft255.demon.co.uk>,
> "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@soft255.demon.co.uk> writes:
>[about Turnpike]
><snip>
>>At the final killing, the last upgrade (a) turned any copy already
>>bought into a multi-seat version, (b) reset the price around the 200
>>(yes, hundred) mark for any new purchasers. Over the following
>>few years, the Turnpike development team were moved to other
>>projects or fired.
>
>If memory serves, it had already been announced that there would be no
>further development work on the package, only bug fixes, even /before/

That's what IR too. (It not working under 7 presumably isn't considered 
a "bug". Though by this time, even bugfixes presumably can't be done, as 
they haven't the people - though I don't remember them ever specifically 
saying they were stopping those. Though they might have said so and I've 
just forgotten.)

>they put the price up! Did they really think that anyone would pay 200
>quid for software which wouldn't be further developed? Or was it just to

I've often wondered if they sold _any_ further keys after that point. 
(It _might_ be possible to tell from the company's annual accounts, 
though it could easily be hidden in the noise, if they so wished, 
especially if the figure was zero anyway.)

>make sure that there wouldn't be any new users, so that they could

I certainly assumed so.

>justify the final dismantling of the last remnant of the development
>team? (To be fair, after the "only bug fixes" announcement, they did
>subsequently release a version that would work with Vista, but I had the
>impression that the work for that was done largely in the developers'
>spare time.)

(I hadn't thought about it, but I reckon you're probably right.)
-- 
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

... "Peter and out." ... "Kevin and out." (Link episode)