Donate to download Cubic IDE update?

[LoadWB]

I am asking for honest opinions and feedback here, no flames or abuse.  I feel this is an honest question of a end-user, and before I make my final judgment I would like the perspectives of others.

Christmas of 2006 I received the Cubic IDE for Christmas (girlfriend plonked down $100+ for me.)  Only recently have I been able to sit down to fully enjoy it: I need a C++ environment for my Data Structures class, and I figured why not use my precious?

While playing around with it I decided to see if any updates are available, and sure enough, SP 1.10 is available.  I clicked on the link to download the first part and I am "expected" to make a donation via PayPal.

My first reaction is "WTF?!  Are you serious?  I am EXPECTED to make a donation on a software package for which $100 or more has already been paid?"

One the one hand, I understand that updates to software take additional development time and not all software updates are obtained for free, and I certainly want to support Amiga developers.  And in this case I at least get to choose the amount I donate.

But on the other hand, the stingy end-user in me says that $100 or more has already been paid to the developers, and demanding that I donate to download updates is insulting.

So, I am asking for some opinions on this.  What would you do?  What are your thoughts on this?

[Lemmink]

See it like this: "Why should I pay for OSX 10.4 when I already payed for 10.3 ?"

Maybe it would have felt different for you if you already used the software for 2 years and received some free updates and are now expected to pay for this one.

[sim085]

On the other hand however Microsoft does not make me pay for each update they develop for Windows. They get downloaded for FREE because I have already purchased the original software and the updates are there only to IMPROVE the original purchase.

Personally I believe (although I do not have a clue what the product is about) that if they wanted to charge money then they should have sold a new release and not provide updates for the old release in exchange of money.

Is this some community based software/hardware. In that case the developers may be in need of that some extra cash to continue. If the market is small then they will try to squeeze all they can from it.

Finally; are you sure you do not have some small link on the page which says "continue to download"? I did come across such "free" software which had a donation page before you could actually download. However they always have that small link

Regards,
Sim085