LINQPad Licensing
Hello,
I have a question about the planned LINQPad release cycle and the implications on the licensing cost. We used LINQPad 5 for some years before upgrading to LINQPad 6 2 years ago. With .Net 6 being disabled in LP6 we are now forced to upgrade, if we want to keep updating our own dlls.
Don't get me wrong: LINQPad is a great product and as a software developer I understand that maintaining and extending the software is a lot of effort that should be payed for.
But with the annual release cycle of .Net I'm wondering how the LINQPad "subscription" will turn out. I read somewhere that .Net 7 will be supported in LP7. Do you plan for an 2-year release cycle?
Kind regards
Peter
Comments
That's right: LINQPad 7 will support .NET 7, and the plan right now is a two-year major release cycle.
From a technical perspective, this is necessary because it provides a means by which LINQPad can drop support for minimally used outdated products. For instance, LINQPad 7 drops support for .NET Core 3.0 (the lowest target for queries is .NET Core 3.1) and its EF Core driver drops support for EF Core 2.x. This allows LINQPad 7 to move forward, while the small audience that still needs these products can continue to use LINQPad 6. You might have noticed that the experimental support for EF Core 6 in LINQPad 6 stopped at preview2 - this was because the changes required to work with subsequent previews would have broken support for EF Core 2 without major architectural changes. Eventually, just maintaining an environment that can test old products becomes burdensome enough.
From a licensing perspective, a two-yearly major upgrade cycle provides resources for both major and minor updates (most of the work is in minor updates: LINQPad 6 had 15 free minor automatic updates with dozens of new features over a period of two years), and for customers, this model has significant benefits over a subscription model which has become prevalent in recent years. Also, the upgrade price is tailored according to when you last purchased or upgraded, and the long-term licensing cost is not unreasonable.
Hello Joseph,
thank you for your extensive answer. I see and agree with your points. You really ship many features with the minor upgrades.
Thanks for confirming that you aim for one major upgrade every two years.
I feel that a biannual upgrade with the upgrade discount really is reasonable for the spectrum of features LINQPad offers.
Thanks for your work there.
Kind regards
Peter