> I'm sure some customers are disappointed. But at some point it's not about the customers--it's about you. If you want to sell your company, you're going to do it no matter what customers want. Customers can't know whether a company is the "sell now" type a priori, and that sucks, but it's also the nature of business.

That's fine. And I'm not expecting companies to come out and say that. I'm also not against them selling out. What I am against is software companies not providing an upgrade path.

An easy solution would be to open source Sparrow. There. Done.

And don't think this is all about Sparrow. It's about indie developers in general. It's a warning. Sell your products! We'll buy! But understand that if we come to rely on your products that we've paid for, when you effectively stop development on it, you are doing your customers harm.

It's why I prefer open source tools (and yes, I've taken advantage of this fact). And the tools I do buy are from companies that have proven they will continue to invest in their products.

Hopefully that explains it more clearly. I'm not against them selling themselves. However, I feel like they slighted their customers. Especially since I know some of those customers had expectations based upon comments they'd made.