Alan, I've always suspected that might be the way the SMA arrangement works, but never had occasion to test it by trying to drop out for a release or two. What you describe sounds legally actionable, although I'm sure it isn't because FS certainly has either its own in-house counsel or a captive law firm at their bidding, and knows what they can get away with. But to say only that this scenario is unfair seems inadequate. In other words, despite all, it nonetheless just plain sounds illegal. Have you ever checked into this? Shaking my head in disbelief, Daniel From: "Alan Clendinen" <alanclendinen@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 2:51 AM Subject: SMA policy was: JAWS update now available I'm afraid the SMA policy is worse than what you describe. If you choose not to keep your SMA current, and then one day you decide to buy a SMA so you can upgrade to the latest JAWS update, Freedom Scientific will demand that you pay for all of the SMAs that you failed to purchase. In other words, if you did not buy an SMA that covered JFW versions 7 and 8, and then wanted to upgrade to JFW version 9, they would require you to pay for a SMA that covered JFW versions 7 and 8, and also pay for the SMA covering JFW 9 and 10. They don't care if versions 7 and 8 were buggy or that you did not download them, you are expected to pay for those previous SMAs. I experienced this situation when a couple of versions of JFW were incompatible with the Windows Sticky-keys utility I have to use, due to being one-handed. I couldn't use two versions of JFW because of this bug, but FS still demanded I pay for the SMA covering those unusable versions before I could get the SMA for the latest version in which the bug was fixed. Alan Blake wrote: I'm afraid it doesn't matter whether you install an upgrade or not. If you buy an SMA, you're entitled to two consecutive upgrades. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.9.2/858 - Release Date: 6/21/2007 1:46 PM -- JFW related links: JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/ Scripting mailing list: http://lists.the-jdh.com/listinfo.cgi/scriptography-the-jdh.com JFW List instructions: To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx