Ableton should offer and host past versions.

[silveriofunk]

just make sure you don't delete the version that you use that works when you download a new one

[ars gratia artis]

B) Sell past versions of Live.

i agree!

[beats me]

I already posted a good reason why they shouldn't host all revs on the current release, but in response to all the "always save old revisions" people, what about the person that just bought Live on something like rev. 0.7? Maybe a previous rev. would work better for them but they wouldn't know.

[Tone Deft]

it's an imperfect world.

yeah, with past versions I'm sure the developers would rather everyone be trying the latest with all the fixes. it'd be amazing to read everyone's conspiracy theories on which version sounds the warmest.

[silveriofunk]

I already posted a good reason why they shouldn't host all revs on the current release, but in response to all the "always save old revisions" people, what about the person that just bought Live on something like rev. 0.7? Maybe a previous rev. would work better for them but they wouldn't know.

Maybe you're right on that, but i can't see how they would host all the old versions though... or why do it just for these cases, specially when the developers obviously think the latest version is the best so far

[Sly One]

I don't agree with selling past versions; it extends the period during which Ableton must provide support for them. No other software company works this way and I don't see Ableton starting!

However, it's just polite to make an archive of point releases available to registered users. I've had issues recently with old projects not playing ball with new versions of Live, and have been lucky enough to have kept my own archive of old versions that I could re-install, but it's a free, easy service that Ableton can offer to its users to make sure that if people find themselves stranded on a buggy release with an hour to go to a live gig, they can get back up and running again.

[beats me]

I don't agree with selling past versions; it extends the period during which Ableton must provide support for them. No other software company works this way and I don't see Ableton starting!

Microsoft Windows.

[arachnaut]

A very large problem that goes with this would be the library, since it is synced to beta releases and partial releases and has a narrow window of usability with no backwards compatibility.

I have a Beta library, a Live 8 library and a Live 7 library, but I'm not keeping any more.

The library and its management has been one of the weakest, if not THE weakest, part of Live since as far back as I can remember.

It would really be nice if Live sets could load as much as possible into a backward level of Live, and just give a warning about what can't load due to version differences. When you add the Share feature and Max perhaps having a different version than Max 4 Live's interface, you can see that this is a nightmare about to happen.

I have a very old copy of Office 2000, but I can still open and read any Word files I encounter. I think I spent less on Office and Windows software than I have on Ableton software, so shouldn't I expect more?

[contakt321]

B) Sell past versions of Live.

i agree!

I agree too, even if they didn't do tech support.

Could be helpful for people who have older, less powerful computers.

I am sure they have a reason for not doing it though.

[knotkranky]

They should

A) Host and make available for download every revision they've ever released for the current version that is out. There's too many "8.0.7 was great but then 8.0.9 fucked me. Does anybody have 8.0.8 they can share? That was the sweet spot." And no, I don't think you should have to store any and all revisions on your drive yourself. I see this costing them near to nothing. If this already exists then feel free to call me a racist.

B) Sell past versions of Live. Maybe not all of them, but maybe the previous 3 versions from the present version. They could sell them at a cheaper price and do competitive upgrade discounts. They have nothing but $$ to gain from this. Existing software downloads are close to zero overhead. At the bare minimum offer the previous version from the current until they're close to done in the debugging process and well on their way to releasing the new version.

C) Bring back the hoodie

Thank you.

+1

Problem is, that would lower the "forced labor" bug reporting pool for said company.

[Tone Deft]

Problem is, that would lower the "forced labor" bug reporting pool for said company.

it totally screws up the "forced labor" pool.

user - "I found a bug in 8.04!!"
Ableton - "we fixed that in 8.1"
then you get less people using 8.1 so it's not as thoroughly tested.

then you'd have users up in here trying to convince people to go back to 8.03 because they personally had bad experiences with 8.1 or whatever. bugs are reported, bugs are fixed, the release is tested, the release is put out. sometimes new versions break old stuff, but that's the minority case. the latest is the greatest.

spend some time in software development, this idea doesn't fly, except for the hoodie.

[knotkranky]

^ I was thinking along the lines of some users sticking with older versions for whatever reason and not participating in the onward march of hacking through newer version bugs. The front-line newest version debuggerers become fewer.

It would behoove abes to not make earlier versions available for that reason.

Admittedly a theory.