Expired DevNet Subscription? Download your software now!

Has your DevNet subscription expired? If so, you may want to write down your serial numbers and download all the software you're entitled to as soon as possible. I just read the following on my (expired) DevNet page:

"On January 15, 2005 Macromedia will disable access to the DevNet portal for expired subscribers. Software downloads, serial numbers, and product resources (including DevNet Resource Kits) will no longer be available through the portal."

You would think that it would be in Macromedia's interests to keep people visiting a page that has a prominant "Renew" link on it :)

In any case, I'm off to go and download everything from my account. Interesting policy, actually: I guess Macromedia felt they weren't spending enough on bandwidth (or perhaps wanted to test their servers with the spike this will no doubt produce as people rush to download software they've paid for.)

I love the idea of software by subscription but I'll renew when I feel there's something worthwhile to renew for and I can't say I'm impressed with this new "Now, clear off!" policy. It's really not my fault if a couple of hastily thrown together DRKs are just not cutting it!

Update: I just calculated it and downloading all the software on my DevNet subscription is going to result in a little over 2GB of bandwidth for Macromedia. Wow! And there's stuff there that I would never have downloaded normally. It gets worse: It's going to take me over 260 mouse-clicks (4 clicks per download), not to mention the 10 hours or so that it will take to download these on my 512K ADSL connection. What a waste of time and effort! What a flawed policy!

Comments