Adding to all that has been said (and even perhaps this was brought up, if so, sorry):
>From a business point of view, MakeMusic most likely keeps selling many of its new versions exactly because of the impossibility of backwards compatibility. So even if it were possible to program, it would be stupid to sell.
That cuts both ways. First, let me say from my point of view, the issue is one of collaboration. If a person always works alone and always produces final product on paper, PDF, or some form other than Finale files, then this person won't care much about backwards compatibility.
I am having trouble believing I'm the only Finale user who works on projects in a collaborative way. For example, a composer may have an idea for a song. In the old days, he/she might have sung it into an audio tape or written a rough lead sheet by hand and put it in the post box for me to receive a few days later.
In today's world, that composer can quickly enter the essence of the song into a Finale file and email it to me the same day, complete with written instructions about the desired instrumentation and treatment. I take that finale file, add the various instruments and enter a rough orchestration. Rather than spending 40 hours locking in a very elaborate product the composer may not like, I spend 6 hours with a first draft arrangement. Then I email that back to the composer.
The composer plays it. He/she emails me back saying what is good and what is not so good about the treatment. He/she may even add a few licks in the french horns at bar 42 and some evil sounding cello stuff in the slow section.. Anyway, I hope you get the drift of how this process works. Multiple iterations over a very compressed time scale -- EXACTLY the same way people work with many word processing documents.
This collaboration only works if we can very easily exchange files without losing significant content. If I am using F2003 and my composer is using F2001, this doesn't work.
Now to your point about marketing. If I always work with the same composer and the two of us never work with anybody else, then there is no problem. We can both buy the upgrade. When that happens, that is good for MakeMusic.
But that isn't the normal situation. I would think most arrangers work with many different clients. In this case, the lack of inter-release compatibility works AGAINST MakeMusic because I must balance the advantages of new features with the disadvantages of becoming incompatible with partners . As I said earlier, that is the main reason I didn't buy the 2003 ug. I would have appreciated some of the new features, even if they aren't earth shattering. But the lack of compatibility makes that far more pain than gain in my situation.
There may be some cases where the lack of compatibility forces pairs of people to upgrade, but I'd bet it loses more sales than it gains.
That's how I see it. Craig
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