I think my question got overlooked in that huge sticky, so here again for answering by cakewalk officials, please:

I still need to know the bug fix policy.

So, say, for example, just before my subscription ends, there would be a a feature rolled out that was announced long before and I'm eagerly awaiting. Now, a major bug in this new feature slipped through preventing the new feature to work at all. A hot fix will be announced, my subscription ends, the hot fix gets roled.

What about warranty here?
I paid with my subscription for this new feature, but it doesn't work until fixed.
I'm not entitled to the fix, as I'm no member anymore.

How is this handled please?

What about other bugs which get fixed along the way after my subscription has ended?
I'm happy to subscribe in order to get new features, refinements and such.
But afai understand, there have to be a warranty period, for the product as a whole, and for new features and patches in particular that get rolled out?

Please clarify.

Thank you

I think it's pretty clear that if you aren't paying for membership of Sonar you won't get any support. You won't get access to latest versions after membership is over so of course you won't get bug fixes afterwards. I think what cakewalk wrote is crystal, you are on a subscriber model.

This can't be legal imho, so I'd have to leave as I can't support a business model which doesn't offer basic warranty for its products.

Can a cakewalk official please confirm that there will be no warranty at all? Or shed some light on the new warranty policies?

Although I think I did see Ryan or Keith say that in a case like that they would probably "work it out" assuming it wasn't something from many months ago.

Yeah. if that occurs you should simply call us up and explain the situation. We'll do whatever we can to rectify an unfortunate circumstance like this, within reason.

Thanks Bill, that's the spirit.

yes, that has been said.

In the mentioned example above, what will I be supposed to? I am no more entitled to support as I'm opted out. Whome do I contact, and how? How long will it take to just roll out the already available fix to me. How will it be rolled out to me? Do I have to start a discussion every time there will be a fix after my subscription end for a bug I encountered myself some days before my subscription ends? Am I entitled to bug fixes when they get available. What will happen when the bug fix can't be separated from new features, which I'm not interested in buying by renewing my subscription. Am I entitled to a refund for defects that are automatically confirmed by an available bug fix which can't be separated from a new feature for whatever reason?

As tempting as this new product is, to be honest, I am concerned about the amount of work and time I have to put into getting my warranty rights?

I need an official statement please on how warranty / bug fixes / repairs to known software defects are handled.

Cakewalk?

This does not represent a change from existing policy in that if you have Sonar X2 with a serious bug that has not been fixed by the time X3 comes out, you will not be able to access the bug fix that was included in X3, but not offered in the last update to X2. Granted there was no promise of new features following the initial release of X2 so the analogy is somewhat defective.
 
There are some jurisdictions that, in theory, provide recourse for the purchasers who have received a product that was "unmerchnatable" or "not fit for the purpose for which these goods are ordinarily used." This would apply in some cases even where the sellers warranty fails to cover or specifically excludes the problem (an implied warranty). Whether you could afford to convince a court that the failure of a single feature in a piece of software qualified is doubtful.
 
 

How to contact Cakewalk directly http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/2090582
They even take pre-Sales calls for questions like what has been posted here.

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk]
Yeah. if that occurs you should simply call us up and explain the situation. We'll do whatever we can to rectify an unfortunate circumstance like this, within reason.

well, the situation will always be: there is a software defect I encountered and there is a repair available already as I read on the forum. I want to either get the fix on warranty, or a refund for the defect.

What is to argue here? How is this handled exactly?