[EAS] Some clarifications RE: EAS vendor support for TLS versions

[Ed Czarnecki]

Sean - there are still DASDEC-I units out there in the market.  That is honestly a bit of a false comparison.   We have not sold a DASDEC-I in almost a decade, and only recently deprecated the platform because replacement parts are no longer available, and because that platform is not compatible with the upgraded OS and other features of v4.0.

However, a DASDEC-I can still run v3.1.  You don't have to upgrade if you have a DASDEC-I running v3.1 ... that will still chug along, and work with the NPT, EAN, TLS, and most other acronyms ...

We just don't have the obsolete parts to repair these older DASDEC-I units.  And the DASDEC-I is not compatible with v4.0 OS.

And, importantly, we provided very ample "end-of..." notices for the DASDEC-I years ago.  End of sales notice was back in April 2010 (over 9 years ago!).  End of support was announced back in 2017.  But the DASDEC-I device is compatible with the last 3.1 release, which means ... it works.

But if your DASDEC-I dies, you're going to replace the EAS box anyway (after a decade or so).  So this is totally apples and oranges...

-----Original Message-----
From: EAS <eas-bounces at radiolists.net> On Behalf Of Sean Donelan

On Mon, 22 Jul 2019, Ed Czarnecki wrote:
> The first fee-based update was v3.0 - coming after 12 years of free 
> software updates.  Strictly speaking, DASDEC updates have not come out 
> "every three years" - looking back at our software lifecycle of v1.0 
> through v4.0 the overall average is 5.3 years between any major update.
> And, up till then, v3.0 was the ONLY fee-based update we had ever 
> issued.  Statements that we had been charging "all along" are 
> factually incorrect.

I guess it depends whether you include the DASDEC-I to DASDEC-II hardware replacement and software upgrade as "fee-based."  Or just restarting the software maintenance version numbers on new hardware.

The DASDEC-I replacement still affected the budgets.  I would start the paid upgrade cycle with the DASDEC-II release.  Likewise with Sage, I would start with their current hardware cycle, not the EEPROM chip updates going back to the ENDEC 1822 in the 1990s.

__________________________________________________________
The EAS Forum Discussion List is hosted by the BWWG (Broadcast Warning Working Group). The Core members of the BWWG are Adrienne Abbott, Clay Freinwald, Suzanne Goucher, Barry Mishkind, David Ostmo, Darryl Parker, Richard Rudman, Gary Timm, and Sharon Tinsley. http://eas.radiolists.net Please invite your friends to join our Forum! The sign up is at: https://lists.radiolists.net/mailman/listinfo/eas
___________________________________________________________