Say What? Libronix no longer supported????

I am and have been and will be an avid promoter of L3. It can't do everything that L4 can do, but that goes both ways. For me, the things L3 does that L4 doesn't are a huge trump card. L4 has been missing so many things I use on a constant daily basis that it took a long time to cope with the frustration. I like the things L4 does well, but it cannot and never will hold a candle to L3 in many crucial ways--notes being the most obvious.

I don't despise L4, but I do despise what L4 did to L3, without so much as attemtping to fill its shoes. If someone offered me $1 million dollars and unfettered access to the entire Logos stable of resources on the single condition that I give up L3, I would have to regretfully turn that offer down. My ability to create notes that pop-up and can be as big as my screen allows me to create presentations and put right into my Bible all the information I need to unravel the Bible's mysteries. L4, on the other hand, is a fancy search engine.

In the gaming industry, certain companies provide end users the ability to code their own changes and upgrades to the off-the-shelf game. As a result, one can often find so-called "mods" that provide an end user experience that is far superior to the original game. I would love to see Bob find a new owner for L3. He doesn't appreciate it because he is now focused on his new babies (L4, the cloud, phone apps, Vyrso, Proclaim, etc.). He talks a lot about the short-comings of L3. I will take those short-comings and its functionality any day over anything Logos has produced in the last 5 years.

I concur with others that the "out of the blue" nature of this announcement, right after a promotion whose purpose was to generate hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of Logos "credit" is a SCANDAL. What good is Logos credit to a user of L3 when L3 files have been discontinued???? On top of that, if I had known that it was my final chance to get L3 resources, I may have gone ahead and purchased the Master Collection.

As it stands, I will be getting refunds on anything I can't use in L3, and cancelling my thousands of dollars of CPs. I guess I'm done with Logos. Actually, I think it may be a sign from God that I already have all I need.

Well, Paul ... you're one of my favorites on the forum. Andy also impresses me, keeping an even-keel when someone took what was most precious to him (his identity). But 'dialoging' with Logos will be unavoidable in the next couple of weeks (the 30-day return period). Yesterday, I was a little surprised. This morning I was thinking I really HAD gone over budget on Logos (with a good chance to reverse course). And now, I'm 50-50 depending on if Bob wakes up from his nap to see how his small bomb-tossing exercise is coming along.

A poster above is right though. The brothers DO get wound up on selling; just not supporting. It reminds me a lot of electric car companies (we have one here).

[quote user= 

What Logos need to do is to have a transparent and public development plan, detailing when legacy products will cease to be developed or indeed dropped altogether, the people can make their own decisions.

Logos also needs to be more open about development plans, particularly when will Logos 4 have parity with the features much loved in Logo 3. It would be nice if people could know with confidence if the issues people find with logos 4 will be addressed (perhaps even in Logos 5 which will only be an update anyway).

I can understand that such openess causes problems and pressures on Logos but there has got to be some middle ground and there can be no excuse for just pulling the rug from under those who thought (probably foolishly, but that is not the point) that they were investing into a Logos 3 system.

I fully support the decision to depreciate Logos 3 support, it makes sense for eveyone for resources to be applied to the future of the platform and it is this very development that should give us confidence in Logos, but Logos has got to stop being so secretive and high handed, it does not build confidence.  

Bob, Thanks for the reply.  What you said is what I understood from your original announcement but it seems others had a different impression. Thanks for taking the time, on a Saturday, to clarify. 

ST and others here:

This announcement has created significant anxiety for those using Libronix.... and due to the fact that probably most L4 users may be unaware of the issues, awakened many fears about the security of their own purchases and libraries.

For my part, I signed on back in LLS days or before... and just mindlessly upgraded to the new versions as time went on. I don't recall if I ever paid for an upgrade (well, no wait... I seem to recall a $69 crossover upgrade that I paid). But I am assuming (from my library list) that all of the resources I had purchased back in the beginning days are still being accessed in L4.

>SECTION DELETED DUE TO GREAT CLARIFICATION FROM BOB... SECTION NO LONGER PERTINENT. AS EXPECTED, GOOD INTENTIONS AND INNOCENT MISTAKE ON LOGOS PART. TRUST THEY WILL MAKE IT RIGHT!<

But here's what I wonder if I could ask some of you more experienced users to do.... We are all terrified of losing access to our libraries. Some because of where we are located and Internet access stinks. Some because of being burned in the past. Some because we've seen even the best of companies suddenly implode and vanish. WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO EXPLAIN IN SIMPLE (VERY SIMPLE, NON-COMPUTER GEEK LANGUAGE) FOR THE REST OF US... what the basic issues are, what kind of scenarios do we need to prepare for, and step by step, how can we best ensure the security of our investments (knowing there is no fail safe method) in the event of a company melt down (like say Bob and all the other senior management at Logos get hit by a wildly careening out-of-control Bellingham bus while crossing the street at the same time after a joint Starbuck's break), a company sale which may NOT include continuing support (or support in a form that we would not want to take up), or in the event that some of us (due to age or declining financial resources) can't keep up with buying upgrades or learning new versions (I'm STILL struggling to learn L4... not sure how easily I'll be able to do that again in 10 or 20 years), or can't afford to make (the probably inevitable) system upgrades to run future versions, and will need to stick with older hardware?

Please, this is a really significant concern for many of us, and we need your help, brothers (and sisters), to make wise decisions and to properly prepare. Will you help us? Us non-techies probably will need some gentle hand holding here as you guide us on the right path. I've lost a life library before (dead tree version) of more than 10,000 volumes (for which I never received Logos discounts, so there was nothing padded or bundled there, and it was a WHOPPING investment over a whole lot of years... and from which I will never be able to fully recover, as it included all of my life's study and ministry notes), so I'm a bit sensitive about this and can too easily freak out in threads such as these.

(trying not to hyperventilate [:S] )

Bob Pritchett said:

Whoa! Let's all just calm down for a moment...  Please don't return all your software or burn down our buildings at least until the weekend is over, and we can get our team together in a room! :-)

First: I'm very sorry for the surprise of this. I take full responsibility. The text development department asked me a month or two ago (I don't even recall when!) if we could stop producing new Libronix-compatible files at the end of 2011, and after hearing all the reasons and expenses, I agreed.

I personally failed to think through all the implications, failed to map "end of this year" to "Christmas special season", and I didn't assign anyone to coordinate communications.

This is my failure, and I'm sorry.

So word did filter through the organization, and people did the things that made sense (like removing the links to the Libronix files in emails, web pages, etc.) but nobody put together a plan. Some things were unanticipated consequences: we are only ending development of new resources in Libronix format, not retiring or hiding existing ones, but the system that shows download information after a purchase is only technically able to show one set of instructions -- it wasn't coded to show different instructions for different books -- so someone went ahead and just stripped Libronix download information out of all the communications, because it wouldn't work for the new releases.

We should have handled the communication better, and provided advance notice. I apologize for this failure.

Some clarification:

- We haven't disabled or taken anything away. While I understand the emotional feeling you may have about this if you hate Logos 4 (or can't run it for some reason), this isn't some sort of theft or betrayal. We provided what you bought. You've been using it for years. It still works today. It even still works in the future, (which is more than you can say for lots of other software after a new version has been released). You have the files we sold you. (Libronix wasn't even sold with a cloud model, so we never promised cloud access to Libronix-format books. None the less, you still have it -- we haven't taken down the FTP site, and have no plans to.)

- We aren't "killing" support, we're just moving the web pages to an archive to avoid confusion for the vast majority of our users, who don't know what Libronix is and found those articles in the way. We're not training new customer service agents in Libronix, but we're not firing the existing team that does know it. We were answering questions about Logos v1.6 (from 1993) and the LLS (1995) till just recently.

- Our cloud-connected Logos 4 works offline, as we have well documented and described. This is much more secure and "back-up-able" than most cloud solutions, which are truly in the cloud and truly inaccessible if the server goes offline. Logos could go dark, and you can run what's on your system. You can use your own local tools to back up your books, your license file, your documents, etc. Back up your system, and run Logos in offline mode, and you're fine indefinitely.

- Your Libronix install, files, and keys need the server even less. So nothing we do -- up to and including going out of business or having our offices wiped out by a tsunami -- takes that away from you. Yes, you need to back up your files rather than counting on an easy download link from the archived orders page. But A) that's the way it was and is with older software -- nothing new, and we aren't taking down the FTP server. You can still get the files.

Time marches on, and technology does as well. I can understand the surprise, and agree we should have communicated the plan in advance. But I think the "I'm going to return everything I ever bought!" and "I've been betrayed!" sentiments are a bit harsh.

Do you expect all software to be supported as-is forever? That every new release will never take away or change anything from the previous? That all new products will be compatible with older products for all time?

Even if you love, love, love Windows XP, when Microsoft announces that some new product will require Vista or later, do you demand a refund of the purchase of your still functioning XP installation? When Apple switched operating systems, and then processors, did you demand a refund for everything you'd bought for OS 9 or Motorola or PowerPC processors? 

Really -- is that fair? We haven't disabled what you bought from us. We don't even disable it if you upgrade to the (free) Logos 4 engine -- they run side-by-side! Which is more than you can say for an OS upgrade... The only thing that changed is that we aren't releasing new products for the old platform. (That we did for more than two years actually seems unusual to me.)

With that said, we don't want anyone to feel cheated. We haven't changed our returns policy. If you ordered a pre-pub that shipped in the last week Logos-4-only when you were expecting Libronix, of course we can refund that. If you have outstanding pre-pubs that haven't shipped, you may want to cancel them.

Again, I apologize for the poor communication. I will create a new post explaining our future plans to help prevent this from happening again around Logos 5 and beyond. 

-- Bob

Thanks Bob for your response.  I think most of us would be happy to be able to download/update our current L3 files one last time.

I've been using L4 for so long now that I hardly even remember how to use L3.

TCBlack said:

I'd like to put some thought to this Emile, and others will as well.  But in the interim much of this has in some way been done at the Wiki.  In particular Step 1 of http://wiki.logos.com/Quick_Installation_onto_multiple_computers contains much if not all of what is required.  

Thanks TC! I'd hoped you'd be one of those who'd respond, because I have sensed you are very much up to speed on these things. I'm really not.

I did go to the wiki link you provided, and then clicked on the link for the Mac instructions as I have a Mac. It will help some, but it doesn't seem to cover what I need. Believe it or not, even reading through what's there is rather a challenge for some of us who just aren't used to working in those areas. I'm sure that makes me sound as dumb as a rock, but it really is the case for a lot of us, despite being intelligent in other areas. I struggle to keep my eyes from glazing over when reading this kind of material. But I will really work on it.

I think what a lot of us need is something like this (kinda like "Saving Yourself From a Logos Library Disaster for Dummies" approach):

INTRO

"okay, these are hypothetical things that could one day happen, and why you need to prepare"

PREPARING

"Here is how you can prepare yourself for this particular scenario: ___________"

"Okay, there are x number of files that you need to copy/download to make sure that you can always access a) your version of Logos and b) the resources you have purchased, and c) your personal notes/content." (and anything else we gotta have).

"The first file you need is this: ____________. This file does this: __________________. This is where you find it: ___________. This is what it looks like: ___________. Copy (or download) it to here: _______ This is how you do that: _________________.

"The next file you need is this: ____________. It does this: ___________________. This is where you find it: ____________. This is what it looks like: ___________. Copy (or download) it to here: _______. This is how you do that: _________________."

"The next file (etc)......"

"Okay, now that you have these x files, save them to (USB harddrive? Flash drive? CD ROM? etc. )"

How secure (long-lasting) is such a storage solution?

How often should we repeat these steps?

RESTORING

"Okay, let's assume the worst. Logos no longer exists, or you can no longer access Logos via the Internet, or you have to continue with an older version (etc)."

"Do this first."

"Do this second."

"Do this third (etc.)"

"Say a prayer of thanks and blessings upon TC (and others) who taught you how to do this and saved your.... ummmm... library."

You see, TC, part of the problem is that some of us don't even know all the things that we need to think about, or all that we need to save or back up, or why. So we don't even know where to start. That's part of what makes the "quick installation on multiple computers" wiki really confusing. Some of us don't even know HOW to back up our computers (I knew on my PC, but I still haven't got it figured out on the Mac... I did see some links to that in the wiki, and I'll explore that).

I might be painting myself a bit more ignorant than I am (probably not much)... but I'll bet there are lots of users as clueless or (God forbid!) even more so than I. That's why we need a REALLY simple, REALLY straight forward, REALLY clear, step-by step guide in as simple English as possible, covering each of the things that  we need to do,  assuming no computer knowledge at all. Is this possible (or something close?)??

Thanks for your time and any input that you are willing to provide!

Bob Pritchett said:

Whoa! Let's all just calm down for a moment...

No kidding, Bob.

There are a handful of very helpful folks on the forums, and I've learned quite a bit about L4 from them.  They have my thanks.

But one other thing I've learned (and certainly not from the group cited in the previous sentence) is, there are some INCREDIBLY CHILDISH PEOPLE who have purchased Logos software and have no problem making their amazingly bad attitudes public on these forums.  (Even more disturbing, some of them are active in the pastorate.)

As I've said elsewhere, it's best to stay away from these forums unless you have a specific question.  Browsing here will ruin your Christian walk. And that is sad.

Semper Fi.

My one concern with this is that V3 is being discontinued without promised features still a couple years later not being implemented into V4 and now talk of V5. The main one for me is the Sermon File Addin, hopefully this means it is right around the corner. It is the only reason I will still open Libronix on occasion. Some of this can be done in PBB, but not to the same level yet.

I love V4 for everything else, thankfully I caught the free offer on Sermon File, but many paid for it.

So Bob, is the updated Sermon File Addin still being implemented? If so, then the only two reasons left for Libronix would be for those that have a computer that won't run V4 and for those who don't like to change from what they are familiar with...

I think it is a smart business decision to save the cost, but do hope that we are still going to get the missing feature(s)...