Several years back when I was president of the Greater Chicago AutoCAD User's Group I had the opportunity to select Revit as one of my NFR products. The individual who received the Revit NFR was able to install and register the product back then and receive a one year non-upgradeable subscription.
Recently as coordinator for the Chicago Autodesk Revit Users Group I awarded a Revit 7 NFR product to a member who happened to win it in our free raffle. When he went to register the product they told him he could not get the one year non-upgradeable subscription.
The problem with this is Revit 7 is not downward compatible with any other release of Revit. Once this individual works with his Revit 7 and tries collaborating or sharing his Revit release 7 drawings with anyone who has upgraded to Revit Building 8, the RVG drawing file will no longer be workable in Revit 7. Unlike AutoCAD 2004, 2005 and the newest release 2006, or releases older, you can share your DWG files among all of the releases. When sharing your AutoCAD DWG's among other release you only loose the ability to use new features and commands and generally any new features convert there entity type back to what is supported in the earlier release.
This unfortunately is not the case with Revit and it is paramount that any Revit user with a legitimate licensed copy be it retail, educational or NFR should be entitled to use the product for the licensing period or able to upgrade the product should new releases render the product unusable, as in the case of Revit releases.
If the intention was to distribute to the LUG's out-dated product so members could not benefit from learning the latest and greatest of the Autodesk product solutions, then it should have been stated so LUG coordinators and administrators were clear and did not mislead their membership.
All of the NFR product I received came before the release of the Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2006 and Revit Building 8 products and now I am stuck handing out out-dated NFR product to the AEC membership. This is not much of an attraction to my members or to any LUG's membership. So what is the real purpose of the NFR product for LUG's to give out to encourage member participation and to reward users with a limited term licensed copy. Why not just hand out educational copies to the professional community?
What do you have to say about the NFR issues. Reply to the thread I started on CAD Management> Local User Groups forum under NFR Products Value to the LUG's and Members
Mel Persin
