"Dave" wrote in message ...
It's a shame there is not a law that allows software to be used freely after
x years of no new updates.

Well, there -- sort of -- is, it's just that "x" is something like 30 years.
Obviously one could argue endlessly about what that time period should be...

I don't think you'd want to make it, say, 5 or even 10 years -- there's often
still plenty of value left in software that old; whoever owns it will often
decide to sell the entire package to someone else if they haven't had the
means or desire to maintain it for that long. (Look at Commodore -- the name
is still worth millions today even though the "real" Commodore declared
bankruptcy in 1994...)