Software Protection

[Elysia]

Well that's wrong. As a customer I've never felt like I could tell anyone to do anything.

The point is that you, as a developer, should listen to your customers. Users should feel like they can tell the developer to implement some stuff. That creates a happy customer.
So I am unsure of what you feel is wrong.

And when you want to quit? Either:
a) groom your successor, or
b) freeze development and work under an alias for the rest of your career

I have no shortage of alternate names.

If you groom a successor, you have to think about your existing customers. If you simply quit and tell them to pay for the successor again, they are not going to be happy.
And if you disappear... well, that's just a big F*** YOU to your customers. Not very nice.

[whiteflags]

If you groom a successor, you have to think about your existing customers. If you simply quit and tell them to pay for the successor again, they are not going to be happy.

And if you disappear... well, that's just a big F*** YOU to your customers. Not very nice.

That's tough for the customer because it really has nothing to do with them. "Grooming a successor" means you chose someone to take over your responsibilities in development. That means you can move on to other things. You probably seriously misunderstood me on this point so I'm not going to address what you said about paying again.

And the other option is not as big a deal as you make it out to be. If you as a developer are not going to make another version, customers have to live with that. Software does eventually get shelved. Can you still buy XP? Eventually it's not going to be updated.

[Elysia]

...You probably seriously misunderstood me on this point so I'm not going to address what you said about paying again...

Yeah, I did misunderstand you there...

And the other option is not as big a deal as you make it out to be. If you as a developer are not going to make another version, customers have to live with that. Software does eventually get shelved. Can you still buy XP? Eventually it's not going to be updated.

All I am saying is you can't just drop maintenance out of the blue, or too quickly. You have to support your users for some minimum amount of time, at least.
Otherwise, there is going to be an outburst, and the users will start disliking you, which is not a good thing!