A discussion on another thread got me thinking about this.
With the new distribution model, I'm curious as to how Cakewalk is going to deal with sunsetting 3rdParty VSTs.
In the past they were omitted from the next release which created a lot of churn. Assuming that updates are going to be patch like, does that mean the churn is gone?
Another scenario is that they'll be removed from the distro so if you have to reinstall to a new machine they will not appear in the latest install. This could be a nightmare for someone if they have projects that depend on something that no longer comes with Sonar.
How is this going to work?

Interesting question. I guess there's always a licensing arrangement between Cakewalk and the vendor. I don't imagine that will change. Cakewalk have already stated that if you're not current with membership you will lose out on any content (read not part of the Sonar program) released during that time.

Like now if you have 3rd party plugins tied to a release if you didn't buy the release you don't have access to it. It's a good reason to only use the monthly payments as a financing arrangement rather than a means to manipulate the most use for the least cost. I still think buying Sonar with a single payment is the best option.

If a plugin gets sunsetted during your ownership and then you stop, make sure it's at a time when you would revert to a point where the desired plugin was included.

You will also have the option to install a rollback (earlier version) if I understand correctly.  I don't know if they would remove those VSTs from the rollbacks or not, but that could be a way to be able to install them if they are removed from the current release (kinda like what we do with stuff like R-mix and V-Vocal today - install X1 or X2 to get them).

Brilliant!!! Previous version uninstalls did have collateral damage in that regard. This model may be the cure.
 
Rocky

I'm assuming all the Blue Tubes stuff was an X3 only package?  I don't see anything about it for Sonar Platinum.

 
They're there, in the Studio Mixing Suite
 
https://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Versions
 
 

Couldn't you just install the old versions too? I finally stopped doing this with my new computer but in the past I've always installed EVERY version of Sonar that I owned going all the way back, just in case there was some VST or something that was included with one and not another.

Paul P
 
They're there, in the Studio Mixing Suite
 
https://www.cakewalk.com/Products/SONAR/Versions
 

 
Cool thanks, I guess I didn't notice those previously.

polarbear
Couldn't you just install the old versions too? I finally stopped doing this with my new computer but in the past I've always installed EVERY version of Sonar that I owned going all the way back, just in case there was some VST or something that was included with one and not another.

Yes this works, and is what I do for R-mix and V-Vocal