honor what you promised.
I bought Logos 1.6 as a seminary student and then paid a considerable amount of money (for me at the time) to buy Logos 2.0 (circa 1996). I was told quite plainly at the time that if I bought Logos 2.0 I would never have to pay for software upgrades ever again. I was told I would pay for my books but not for software. Over the years, there have been many times when Logos has fudged on this promise. First, I had to pay to upgrade my software to get Libronix--I was told that since Logos was now Libronix that promise didn't apply. When I was using a Mac, I was told that that promise only applied to PCs and not to Mac software. Well, now I'm back on a PC and Logos is now Logos again, and still I'm told I have to pay $160 to upgrade my software to Logos 5. I was just told by a customer representative that I could upgrade my Logos engine to the Logos 5 engine, but, and I think this is a direct quote, "that wouldn't do anything for [me]." In order to get any new features of Logos 5, I had to pay $160.
So basically the policy that once said, "you'll always get our software for free and you'll only have to pay for books" has now turned into "you get useless updates for free."
This seems to be a bit dishonest, but I thought I'd at least say it here before I purchase Bibleworks. They charge for upgrades too, but at least they never told me that I would never be charged for upgrades.
Download Logos 5 for free here: http://www.logos.com/installation
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Scott commented
Bradley, this isn't quite right. I was promised "you'll only have to pay for books." Now I'm told I have to pay for books and datasets. I'm only given the shell for free. I still have to pay for new features. There's really no way to reconcile "books only" with "books and datasets" honestly.
Accordance is releasing a beta for Accordance for Windows. Back in 1995 their grammatical searching was better than Logos 4 has now (and likely Logos 5 too). So I'm looking closely at them. They will charge me for their upgrades, I'm sure. But at least they've never told me that they never would.
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It's not true that "simply upgrading the engine would be pointless" or that it "wouldn't do [you] any good"; the salesman was mistaken on that point. On the wiki, there's a list of new and improved features that you will get for free when getting the free Logos 5 engine: http://wiki.logos.com/Logos_5.0
I believe that we are still delivering on the promise to keep updating the software for free.
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Scott commented
I read the article, and while I think I sympathize with some of it, there are still problems.
1) I was told circa 1996 that I would only ever have to pay for books--no mention of datasets. Now I'm told I have to pay for other things too. Maybe logos didn't anticipate the problems created by that promise, but it's still what was promised.
2) The salesman told me the Logos 5 engine would be available for a free download, but he also said it wouldn't do me any good. I was told in 1996 I would always be able to upgrade my product to enjoy new features. Now I'm being told that these new features are tied to datasets that I have to buy, and just upgrading the engine would be useless to me. So while I was sold Logos 2 on the basis that I would benefit from upgrades, I'm now being told I have to buy those parts of the upgrade I would benefit from.
3) All software companies put great expense into similar kinds of work to maintain a competitive edge over rivals--even for free software. Facebook puts considerable effort/expense into upgrading their service to compete with Google Plus. iTunes adds new features at great expense to compete with Windows Media Player. Amazon does the same to compete with Apple and B&N. Their software is free despite considerable cost to developing that software because they know that if they don't put that effort, people will purchase their content from companies that do.
3) The web interface and android/IOS apps are free and are updated. Even the content accessed by these apps appear to be updated as well. For instance, I use NIV1984 for work (we're not ready to switch to the new NIV), but on the web I can't even access NIV1984--I have to use the new one. So content gets upgraded for free.
4) Features that were promised in Logos 2 (circa 1996) have yet to materialize. I was told I would be able to use sophisticated grammatical searching in a way comparable/superior to Accordance at the time. That has never materialized. I've been waiting for it, and it looks like it may finally be the case in Logos 5, but now it seems I have to pay for it again, when I thought I was paying for it (once and for all) over 15 years ago.
I really don't care much about timelines and such. A logos-written ebook like that may well be worth paying for. If that's what I have to pay for and I get the software upgrade for free, then I have no problem. But I was told on the phone that simply upgrading the engine would be pointless, and to get any benefit from Logos 5 I would need to pay $160. That's what I'm complaining about.