I have lifetime updates and am taking this news as a warning to begin transitioning all of my Sonar projects to a different DAW.

I think what we need to remember is that if a situation arises whereby none of us can even launch Sonar and access our old projects, then it will ultimately be extremely bad publicity for Gibson. We're talking about thousands of people with thousands if not millions of hours of creative work down the drain. Not all projects can be salvaged by simply dragging the wav's into another DAW. You also have MIDI clips, hundreds of effects/synths and all of their settings, complex routing, dozens of lanes of automation envelopes etc. Destroying everyone's creative work by making it inaccessible would be the kind of horror story that would go viral, cause massive outrage throughout the audio production world and ultimately be a huge stain on Gibson's character going forward. I for one will stop at nothing to spread the word about Gibson everywhere I can, if such an event were to occur. 
 
In the past, there have been times at which I have ended up having to recreate a large Sonar project from scratch due to weird stuff and corruption building up in the original project file. It's a huge amount of work getting everything just the same, especially in projects with upwards of 100 tracks, hundreds of effects, dozens of synths, hundreds of MIDI clips and all manner of sends and sidechains and whatnot going on. I can only imagine how much harder it would be to do in a new DAW I wasn't familiar with. I have dozens of unfinished projects like this. Our #1 priority has to be to pressure Gibson to ensure the basic operation of our software for the foreseeable future. If they won't make that guarantee, then we need to make sure that what they did to us goes down on record, including the editing of their Wikipedia page. 

bapu

bitflipper
 
The problems will occur when you upgrade your computer and need to re-authorize. Dimension Pro, Rapture and Addictive Drums are going to be problems even if SONAR isn't.

Addictive Drums are authorized on XLN's site not Cakewalk's.

Yep, exactly what I said, a few posts back. Same is true of Melodyne Essentials (authorized by Celemony).

JonD
double post

Don't mind if I do.
 

Ron2112
I'm seeing posts from many lifetime subs who seem to think that your software will stop working tomorrow.  It won't.
 
There's no functional difference from folks who bought Sonar 4 or 8 and decided to stop there.  The only difference is that you now have the "final" version of Sonar Platinum.  It could -- and probably will -- last for another decade with no problems.
 
You're just not getting anymore updates.  Buying the "lifetime" upgrade enabled you to cut the cord from the Cakewalk servers.  At $150, it was about the same price as all the other upgrades that had a lifetime of about 2 years.
 
Yeah, the situation sucks, but some of you need to get a grip.

Get bent.
 
If you don't see the issue, you are deluded.
 
Many people were barely into a renewed subscription when they then paid even more to get lifetime.  They didn't get their money's worth even at the annual payment rate; which isn't what they paid for, to begin with.
 
People got hosed.
 
I'm not mad at Cakewalk.  I'm furious at Gibson, however.

Ron2112

anxiousmofo

Ron2112
I'm seeing posts from many lifetime subs who seem to think that your software will stop working tomorrow.  It won't.
 
There's no functional difference from folks who bought Sonar 4 or 8 and decided to stop there.  The only difference is that you now have the "final" version of Sonar Platinum.  It could -- and probably will -- last for another decade with no problems.
 
You're just not getting anymore updates.  Buying the "lifetime" upgrade enabled you to cut the cord from the Cakewalk servers.  At $150, it was about the same price as all the other upgrades that had a lifetime of about 2 years.
 
Yeah, the situation sucks, but some of you need to get a grip.

Get bent.
 
If you don't see the issue, you are deluded.
 
Many people were barely into a renewed subscription when they then paid even more to get lifetime.  They didn't get their money's worth even at the annual payment rate; which isn't what they paid for, to begin with.
 
People got hosed.
 
I'm not mad at Cakewalk.  I'm furious at Gibson, however.

 
If that's your personal situation, then you've got no one but yourself to blame for waiting so long.  For those of us who jumped when the offer was first made, we got our money's worth two times over.
 
And my bet is that SONAR in it's present form will be usable for over a decade from now.  Assuming someone doesn't buy up the rights to release SONAR X5.

I bought it within a day of it being offered, myself.  And I had just renewed.
 
Not everyone's annual renewal date was the same, y'see.