Non-commercial users sometimes complain about warnings and final deactivation of older SmartGit versions. Now why are we doing this?
First of all, we’d love to see everybody running the latest version of SmartGit, regardless whether commercial or non-commercial user. We are steadily improving SmartGit and only supporting (fixing bugs in) the latest release version. Hence we are confident that the latest version contains the best features and is most stable.
Commercial users get between 1 and 3 years of updates. That means they can use any major new version which we release up to 3 years after the purchase date (including all bug-fix release, even if released later). If they want to use newer versions, they have to purchase update licenses.
Non-commercial users get SmartGit free of charge. The upgrade to a new major version is as easy as a download and will become even more convenient with upcoming versions. Hence, costs are only a few minutes of time vs. gain are new features and improvements in other areas.
Our gain of having non-commercial users running the latest version is a faster spreading of new versions, resulting in better reviews and less problem reports.