mettelus
Ultimately this is going to fall back onto voiced concerns when the membership model was announced if this trend continues. At the point of each member's renewal, if a damning bug is introduced in that last release, the user will be faced with paying for a bug fix or rolling back to the "best known version." I agree with the OP in that new content rates significantly lower than work flow enhancements and impeccable stability for me.
 
The "hitting a moving target" is most obtrusive from my perspective, as trying to keep track of things creates more undue overhead than necessary. In fact, it should not even be required.
 
Even more disconcerting to me is a recent series of crashes... the VSTi vendor took this VERY seriously (it was a crash after all) and emailed me twice in 24 hours. As someone who takes "field failures" as the #1 tarnish to one's reputation, the response in these forums as of late is often upsetting to see. This is even worse when someone does not have the bandwidth to read/report things, and what is in their lap is "all there is."

This is exactly what some of us were concerned about prior to the new "model". Now that tree has begun to fruit.
Some of us just want our tools to work reliably and do not have the time nor inclination to "test" the newest release.
Which should not be the job of end-users anyway. I agree with the OP, and am saddened to think we may never have another truly stable version. Yes, it is still early in this new "model". But, previous "E" revisions got allot closer to stable than this one. I am also aware that there are many users ("almost everyone" as Craig puts it) that are happy and have no serious problems. Maybe there are enough happy campers to keep Cakewalk profitable, as that appears to be CW's target. However, I have noticed a few more users shifting sides with each monthly release.
 
I am all for separating fixes from new features from new goodies.
Fixes - often
Features - when they are actually ready
Goodies - whenever CW makes the deal
 
 

BobF
It is NOT a "subscription" model!!

Call it what you like, but the fact is that the current situation differs from the old purchase model in that subsequent short-term releases are adding new bugs as well as fixing old ones, which essentially means you have to stay subscribed to get current bugs fixed. Back when people bought X3 there was a reasonable expectation that bug fixes would come, for free, and they did. With the current model, at least 3 of the 5 releases so far have been in a worse state than X3 for me (one because the piano roll view kept changing pane size until no keys were visible, one because it would sporadically drop notes from drum map playback, and one because the drum maps no longer seem to play at all). What are the chances of something being this broken on the last month of my subscription/membership/call it what you will? Currently it's looking like 60%. That's not good enough.

Kylotan

BobF
It is NOT a "subscription" model!!

Call it what you like, but the fact is that the current situation differs from the old purchase model in that subsequent short-term releases are adding new bugs as well as fixing old ones, which essentially means you have to stay subscribed to get current bugs fixed. Back when people bought X3 there was a reasonable expectation that bug fixes would come, for free, and they did. With the current model, at least 3 of the 5 releases so far have been in a worse state than X3 for me (one because the piano roll view kept changing pane size until no keys were visible, one because it would sporadically drop notes from drum map playback, and one because the drum maps no longer seem to play at all). What are the chances of something being this broken on the last month of my subscription/membership/call it what you will? Currently it's looking like 60%. That's not good enough.

Perhaps you should go back to X3.

The alternative is to have a strict separation between development and testing phase. During the testing phase, no new features or other code is introduced, but all branches are put together and changes are made only for bug fixes. Testing and fixing are repeated until the system is stable. But this kind of testing requires more time for a complex systems like Sonar than you can spend each month. So, the monthly release schedule is part of the problem.

I am totally aware that interdependencies with 3rd party software and hardware may cause problems that are hard to find by testing for the developer. But we are speaking of bugs in the basic functionality of Sonar. Using PRV with multiple tracks or using drum maps are standard use cases.
 
(Edited to add that this is a reply to lfm.)

mudgel

Kylotan

BobF
It is NOT a "subscription" model!!

Call it what you like, but the fact is that the current situation differs from the old purchase model in that subsequent short-term releases are adding new bugs as well as fixing old ones, which essentially means you have to stay subscribed to get current bugs fixed. Back when people bought X3 there was a reasonable expectation that bug fixes would come, for free, and they did. With the current model, at least 3 of the 5 releases so far have been in a worse state than X3 for me (one because the piano roll view kept changing pane size until no keys were visible, one because it would sporadically drop notes from drum map playback, and one because the drum maps no longer seem to play at all). What are the chances of something being this broken on the last month of my subscription/membership/call it what you will? Currently it's looking like 60%. That's not good enough.

Perhaps you should go back to X3.

Perhaps I should get a working product since I'm paying for it.

ralf
The alternative is to have a strict separation between development and testing phase. During the testing phase, no new features or other code is introduced, but all branches are put together and changes are made only for bug fixes. Testing and fixing are repeated until the system is stable. But this kind of testing requires more time for a complex systems like Sonar than you can spend each month. So, the monthly release schedule is part of the problem.

I am totally aware that interdependencies with 3rd party software and hardware may cause problems that are hard to find by testing for the developer. But we are speaking of bugs in the basic functionality of Sonar. Using PRV with multiple tracks or using drum maps are standard use cases.

Clearly from what Noël said (he's the CTO) Cakewalk don't share your opinion. For that matter I don't think the majority of users feel that way either. The word around here is that this has been the most stable version of Sonar ever. And by and large the membership program is proving successful.

While we are talking about new bugs in the E release, am I really the only one who has problems with controllers in controller lanes becoming unusable for multiple tracks in PRV that I reported here?

Kylotan

BobF
It is NOT a "subscription" model!!

Call it what you like, but the fact is that the current situation differs from the old purchase model in that subsequent short-term releases are adding new bugs as well as fixing old ones, which essentially means you have to stay subscribed to get current bugs fixed. Back when people bought X3 there was a reasonable expectation that bug fixes would come, for free, and they did. With the current model, at least 3 of the 5 releases so far have been in a worse state than X3 for me (one because the piano roll view kept changing pane size until no keys were visible, one because it would sporadically drop notes from drum map playback, and one because the drum maps no longer seem to play at all). What are the chances of something being this broken on the last month of my subscription/membership/call it what you will? Currently it's looking like 60%. That's not good enough.

There is absolutely NOTHING preventing the following approach:
 
1.  Pay the full update price Jan '15
2.  Install NO updates each month, allow updates to accumulate
3.  Do a full update in Jan '16.
 
This represents only a marginal cost above the previous annual update model; approx $200 instead of the $180 I was paying back in the early Sonar days.
 
Don't want to wait the full year?  Let thing accumulate and settle for 3 months, or 6.  Watch the forums for signs of euphoria, THEN do an update.
 
There is nothing preventing anyone from treating this like the 'old way' if that's what they are more comfortable with.
 
Even updating annually there were a lot of folks that sat back and let the smoke clear before doing installing the update.  You can still do that.  Get a clean image and update.  If it doesn't work for you, back out.  Maybe your show-stopper gets fixed in a dot-b, or maybe next month.
 
Point is there are more options now.

BobF: Well, except that your suggestion would mean to get no bug fixes at all, or at least still have the risk to select an unstable release. Because there is permanent development, there is permanent risk of regression.

mudgel: I totally agree that Sonar Platinum is pretty stable in total. What I am pointing out is that a monthly release schedule (unlike a major release followed by free bug fix releases) bears a high risk of introducing new bugs each month. And up to now, 2 out of 4 updates had new bugs in basic functionality that were very obvious and far from being caused by special conditions.

BobF: You're missing the point. Platinum had workflow breaking bugs in the first release - not too surprising as that is what you expect from software these days. In the past I'd wait for a patch and then I'd know that would be more robust. Now, we wait for a patch and more often than not, it fixes one thing and breaks others. The best release for me so far was Dorchester and even that messed up some VSTs with their new MIDI on/off handling. The issue is not that the subscription model forces me to update; it's that Cakewalk seem more blasé about the quality level in what they ship because they know they'll be shipping another update soon anyway. X3E was the 4th attempt at fixing up X3 where their aim was to stop having to ship patches, and quality improved in each one. Sonar Platinum Everett is not the 4th attempt to fix up Sonar Platinum - they fix some bugs but they also add some features, only have a month of testing available, and know there will be another patch soon either way.
 
Having more options is not good if the options are worse than the fewer options we used to have. If things don't improve then there are going to be a lot of unhappy people once next January rolls around, wondering if they're going to have to pay for another year's membership to fix a bug that was introduced since the last time they bought a membership.