Bought the software in 1996 -- even tho, back then, I had full time access to a seat at my major client's site -- just so I could really get to grips with it ( I was tasked with evaluating it as an enterprise-wide proposition), as well as use it for my own work.
Since then, I have kept subscription current right up until this year, and on balance it has helped me earn my living, and certainly kept me interested. I've been heavily involved with the local user group, including editing the newsletter.
However I have been getting progressively frustrated by the reliability issues well traversed on this ng , although not usually by me -- I personally feel unsatisfied venting to a mixture of like-minded people and apologists -- there seems little need to whip up the former and little to be gained by winning over the latter.
I guess that puts me solidly in the non-complaining group
HOWEVER.........
this year I decided to register my protest in the only meaningful way I know, by refraining from renewing my subscription. I will stick with 2003 for as long as I can, and then decide which way to jump.
Don't read on if you just wanted the shortish answer>
The other factor which - in a small but significant way - tipped the balance for me was my concern at the increasingly grim ramifications of being a non-US national using US-sourced software.
I have uncomplainingly accepted that, not being a US citizen, I cannot be trusted to use my seat without a hardware dongle. This is a significant drawback for someone who travels a lot with their seat -- the dongle can easily fail or be lost, turning your laptop into an expensive paperweight, when your VAR is twelve thousand miles away. At least the recent USB dongles are more convenient and reliable, albeit even easier to lose.....
However I was shocked to discover that the licensing agreement for SldWks
2003 required me, as a non-US national, to certify that I would NOT use the software to design nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction.
It is little consolation that I have a non-negotiable lifetime personal rule to walk away from *any* project connected with *any* sort of weapons. I somehow doubt that those who don't share my convictions are refraining from signing the license -- I am therefore, for the purposes of this discussion, indistinguishable from them.
Given that my rights to the software would lapse if I were -deemed- to be engaging in such activities...
Given that should my rights lapse my considerable investment in the software would instantly evaporate - I don't even have the right to sell my seat...
Given that a precedent has been set for such matters to be judged in a unilateral, high-handed and capricious manner, and given I am asked this question because of my non-US status, implying that I automatically present a higher risk factor because of this...
and (delicious irony, double standard warning) Given that I live in a country which is continually (although mercifully, to date, unsuccessfully) leant on by the US to alter our anti-nuclear policies in ways which would allow into our country US nuclear weapons of mass destruction designed in the US on US software.....
Consider this in combination with Microsoft's purposeful movement in the direction of adding terminator genes to system software, to ensure that our ongoing computer use is eventually entirely at Microsoft's discretion.....
Such unbridled power is not rendered innocuous by the fact that it has not ... yet ... been exercised.
It would be premature to use the word "alarming", but I hope the situation -- both in respect of US software, and US foreign and trade policy -- does not deteriorate any further.
I do not relish a world where the US lapses, however gradually, towards a "compound in a hostile world" mentality, where those inside the walls merit protection and those without require control, and any means are justifiable provided they serve either of those ends.
No-one would be more delighted than me to discover that my concerns turn out to be groundless, but please do not mistake this for a situation where words would help to dismantle those concerns. Those concerns will take care of themselves when the behaviour changes, and given that America is a highly responsive democracy, that's essentially up to the American people.
But why should the American people care?
I'm not sure anyone can answer that, and that, now that, that IS a cause for concern.