What's the difference between the annual and perpetual license now?

[James Park]

Stata website now says

"Maintenance allows users with a perpetual license to stay up to date with a predictable annual cost. When you purchase a perpetual license, you receive one year of maintenance, which is renewable annually at the same price of renewing an annual license. When you keep your maintenance current, you will receive the next release of Stata automatically and without additional charge, giving you the benefit of both access to the latest features and a perpetual license."


With annual license, to get the next release, I pay the annual license price.

With perpetual license, to get the next release, I pay "the same price of renewing an annual license"

Then what's the difference?

Perhaps the difference is that, with annual license, after one year, Stata.exe will explode or something if I don't pay more, whereas with perpetual license, after one year, Stata.exe will still function normally even if I don't pay more?

[William Lisowski]

This is a question best directed to Stata Technical Services at https://www.stata.com/support/tech-support/ linked to from the Support tab on Stata's home page.

It is certainly the case that with an annual license Stata ceases to run after the expiration of the license, unless it has been renewed. I've been caught by that in an enclave I use with an annual license and an inattentive administrator.

The following is taken from correspondence I had with Stata Technical Services earlier this year.

On your Stata maintenance website at

https://www.stata.com/order/maintenance/

you state that one of the benefits of maintenance is "You are ensured continued
access to updates including software enhancements, bug fixes, and security patches."

I have three questions.

1) Does this mean that without maintenance I am not assured of "continued access
to updates including software enhancements, bug fixes, and security patches" that
are routinely distributed through Stata's update command? In other words, will the
update command cease working for me if I do not renew maintenance?

2) Extending this question further, Stata occasionally will increment the release
number, e.g. from 16.0 to 16.1, through the update process. Without maintenance
will I continue to have access to these "dot release" updates?

3) Since I have a perpetual license on Stata 17, if I have maintenance and through
it acquire Stata 18 when it is released, will my perpetual license transfer to Stata 18,
so that if I later leave maintenance, I will continue to have access to Stata 18?

1. No, the update command will not stop working. You will still have
continued access to all updates and bug fixes released for Stata 17.
However, once a new version is release, Stata 17 will no longer be
supported with these updates.

2. Yes, you will still have access to all updates within this release,
Stata 17 to 17.1 for example. You will not receive any upgrades across
releases (Stata 16 to Stata 17). Upgrades to future releases must be
purchased at the standard upgrade price.

3. Yes, your license will remain on the most recent version of Stata you
received during your maintenance term. It will not revert back to an
older version if you decide to discontinue maintenance.