Have I missed something? What does this actually mean?
If you migrate your perpetual licence, that is take the âsweet sweet dealâ of subscription with the first year being only $120 and the thereafter years at $299 (or whatever they then move the subscription to), then you relinquish your perpetual licence in favor of a discount (1 year only) of the subscription.
However, if you do not take the subscription bait (and switch) then your perpetual licence stays yours, but youâll have to subscribe a new seat at the full asking price for that dual surety.
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I have a 2020 perpetual license.
So if I take the deal thatâs it.
I wonât have a license for 2020 anymore and if I stop subscribing I have no SketchUp that I can fall back onâŚ?!
Yeah, Iâd like that answered as well. I was under the assumption that our LAST classic license was âeternalâ for as long as it can run and install. Is this NOT the case?
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@colin has confirmed earlier in this topic that a perpetual license which has been upgraded to a subscription will still remain usable forever for the corresponding single version of SketchUp, even if the user stops subscribing.
For example, I currently use 2018 (my active license), but have continued to pay the annual Maintenance & Support to the present day and thus I am entitled to 2020 (but I have not downloaded it). If I subscribe for a few years and then stop subscribing, I will still be entitled to use 2020 (and 2018 and 2019 etc.) forever, as I understand it.
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But Julian specifically mentioned taking the âsweet sweet dealââŚ
No.
Call it subscription AND raise the price by 250% and all hell will break loose.
You have to be incredibly tone deaf to not understand this.
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My understanding (from Colinâs comments in this thread on or about 5 June) is that the act of subscribing and the unsubscribing does not remove the âperpetualityâ of a former classic-perpetual license. For example, say you hold a perpetual license for 2020 today. You convert to a subscription. When they become available, you start using SketchUp 2021, 2022, etc. Then you stop your subscription. You can no longer use 2021 or 2022. However, your license for 2020 should still be valid and 2020 should still work (assuming the operating system, your computer etc. enable it).
This is correct. A perpetual license was already created. Once that happens, there is no undoing that license, though it may be tied to a Trimble ID that has a Maintenance & Support agreement tied to it which entitles the owner to support and upgrades during the duration of the M&S⌠when that expires, the license still exists, can still be used, but for support youâll have to rely on the forum or Help Center and you canât âtalk to a personâ anymore.
In the example above from @MikeWayzovski, he owns a perpetual license for SketchUp 4 up through SketchUp 2020 (I think he said he stayed active enough throughout) and if he has a computer that can install those licenses then he could install them all.
The âsweet sweet dealâ is not negating any past ownership. Weâre not taking away any past ownership.
One other thing to note about cost, just looking at numbers posted in this thread, after 3 years then subscription starts to be more expensive than a perpetual + maintenance and support. While you can say its not a word/semantics issue⌠in many cases it is. I personally like the thought of owning my license outright. The only fear that seems relevant to me in this new scenario is that one day I might want to use my software and not be able to because the subscription lapsed and I donât want to shell out $300 on that day to get it working again.
A good check & balance for testing value of SketchUp is⌠do I earn MORE than $300 a year from SketchUp? How much more do I have to make before I see value in the software? As a hobbyist, I would have a hard time justifying $300, though Iâm not sure where I land on value. I would personally be more interested in a monthly price. Again, as a hobbyist, if I could look at my monthly value for the enjoyment of using the software versus Netflix, I could more easily justify a cost.
One last thought on this, as a new user coming into the âSketchUp EcoSystemâ is that to kick the whole new world off, I can pay $300 today and be going, rather than the $700+ for a new user getting a license and maintenance and support. Each year I need to come up with a fresh $300 to keep using this money making application. Four years down the road, ideally, I will have gotten $1200 worth of value out of this software and kept the team making it clothed and fed and able to continue working on it.
I stand to be corrected then. That is not the way I read or understood it previously.
Iâd rather wait to see what happens than take a chance and lose my perpetual licence. SketchUp has carefully worded things in the past and later turned around, when subscription was first introduced together with keeping the perpetual in place, there were concerns then already and we were told that we should not worry as they would not drop the perpetual licence in the foreseeable future. Where are we less than 2 years later? Donât tell me a licencing model was developed and implemented without the obsolescence of the existing licencing model being roadmapped/plotted.
Is this some new policy change? Since it has always been that if you upgraded to a newer version, and have activated the newer version, you cannot load / activate the older licences from fresh again?
So, what is living your house worth to you? Assuming it is bonded, letâs increase that bond by 250%, sounds good doesnât it? Not? But you love living your house in the neighborhood that you chose. Itâs comfy, you even furnished it the way you want, you feel safe there. Isnât that worth the 250% increase? Câmon, it HAS to be. Silly argument is silly.
There is no arguing to making it somewhat more accessible that way. It doesnât make financial sense in the long term though, at least for the end user. Iâm also one who prefers buying something outright, especially less costly things like software licences.
Are you implying that the team developing and maintaining SketchUp in past were not paid their dues? Strange that you have not been able to find other gainful employment then.
Isnât commerce based on fair exchange? I have this for sale, here, buy it at XYZ, it took me X amount of materials, Y amount of time and skill to produce, and Z for profit margin (incl. overheads, etc.). Now weâre in the situation where we need to buy something that has yet to be produced, with no clue as to what improvements it may or may not bring. Doesnât make sense, does it.
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Iâll need to fact check this one. Before we moved to the Maintenance and Support policy you could always continue to use your old license. You may be correct that the newer licenses only let you activate with your most current license and Iâm being forgetful on that⌠Iâll come back and edit here once Iâve confirmed.
I feel like there is a logical fallacy in this argument, the house i live in is not the same as software I use for a living. I also donât know what you mean by âbondedâ but presume you may mean a mortgage? In any event, this feels like arguing without a real point and Iâm just ignoring whatever point youâre trying to make with this one.
Please donât put words in my mouth. Iâve said it in other threads, Iâll say it here again⌠I am never âImplyingâ anything in my responses and by stating such youâre trying to make me a villain or a liar at best. I am not implying anything but stating that I and my co-workers have a job, we get paid and if everyone bought SketchUp 2018 and used that in perpetuity without ever paying again, I and my co-workers would be out of work real fast. There are only so many new people to come along and buy the software, so as the userbase grows it only makes sense that another way to continue to support the team is possible.
This is an emotional thing for many, I realize this, and it can be hard to look at things objectively when clouded with emotion. Oversimplifying the details of how goods and services are handled trivializes the entire argument. Youâre not mentioning the value that SketchUp has for a user, which is different for EVERY user.
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Yes. I have access to the classic portal, and can see whether a license is activated, or not (and on which machine)
No.
This i what I meant with âwhere itâs getâs fuzzyâ
You get to keep your classic license, it remains active, so you can move the license from one machine to another.
It will be yours to keep perpetual.
so basically, you have two licenses: The classic and the subscription.
If you stop the (migrated) subscription, you are left with the classic, like now.
You may use this commercially.
As stated above, incorrect.
Because they get to keep the classic license, which includes LayOut and StyleBuilder. (donât forget to save as a lower version)
Well, the above proves that some things arenât clear enough for everyone. I will state one more time:
You get to keep your classic license. (the version which is active at the time you migrate)
The Subscription starts the moment you migrate.
You get to keep the classic license, once you stop subscribing.
It may be use in full potential, commercially etc. (of course, without the 
)
Once your classic license is used for the migration promo- offer, it cannot be used again for another promo.
The current version is now 2020. That means you can no longer activate 2019. (you skipped that version)
You can activate version 2020, though, but than, you can no longer âmoveâ the 2018 license. You can only use it on the machines where it was activated.
Thus, if you are planning to buy a new machine, wait with activating the 2020, but activate the 2018 on it, first.
I have lost some machines along the road. I still have access to an iMac that has version 2015-2019, though.
But, I do have an active version 8 for windows, because at that time, licenses wherenât âagnosticâ or platform-independant, and I switched back from Windows to Mac.
The only logical fallacy is trying to justify a 250% increase based on how much something is worth to someone. Yeah, I donât get your argument either, its like Swiss cheese.
Every business has a plateau / market saturation point, SketchUp is no different. Maybe if more value and actual perceived development was in the order of the day the userbase would grow in a sustainable manner, it used to be, so it sounds like there is a lot of dead wood that needs to be cut.
What I donât understand is, in your one sentence the userbase isnât growing and in the next it is, so which is it?
Not trivializing, getting to the essence of the matter. So, based on your argument, will SketchUp be customizing the cost for every user based on their perceived value of the software?
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Now Iâm confused, ignoring subscriptions for the moment: I have active versions of SU -15,16,17,18, and 20 on my computer. If I buy a new computer will I be able to transfer them all to the new computer and have them work? Or will only the latest 2020 be able to activate?
I believe that on a new computer I can only activate the latest license, so I would loose access to any older versions. Even if I remove the licenses on the older versions they will still not activate on a new machine. This is my understanding, but comments above made this sound not true?
This is very relevant to me as I strategize how best to maintain a perpetual license in the future. Assuming I keep 2021 as my last perpetual version, then subscribe to later versions, will I still be able to move 2021 to a new computer or will that move be deauthorized by the subscription? If so I guess I should buy the newest computer I can just before activating 2021?
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No he canât. If heâs activated the perpetual license for 2020 and heâs past the grace period (30 days, I think) he canât install any prior Trimble versions. He will get âa license not validâ error. Anything newer than version 8 other than 2020 is gone.
You can move and remove the active license, once you have activated a new received license, it becomes active immediately, no âgrace â period. From that moment only the machines where you have activated the older versions can run those older versions.
I have lost some machines, so I have lost those âactivationsâ
They are not âgoneâ I have used the older version to upgrade.
Maybe thatâs what was meant by âif he has a computer that can install those licensesâ then. I read it as if you have a computer you can install it on, you can run all your old versions which is not correct.
And there used to be a grace period.
The only 30-days grace period I know is when youâre Maintenance and Support has ended and you prolong or renew it within that period, you wouldnât be charged an extra fee.
For network licenses, there is a grace period of 60 days: if someone activates a newer version, the grace period starts and all users can than use the new and old version. After that period, all users must work with the new version, for there can only be one version active.