DT4 beta & trial users

DEVONthink
1

Apologies if this has already been answered somewhere I’m not finding, but how do the usual trial terms apply to the DT4 beta? In particular,

  1. Are new users given 30 days/150 hours and then they have to stump up for a licence, or does the trial period (with Pro and Server features unlocked) run for the entire duration of the beta?
  2. Are new users working with the DT4 beta as a trial subject to the feature limitations (e.g. OCR limit) of the trial version?
  3. Does the DT4 beta reset the clock on previous trial timeouts? In other words, if a user ran out the clock on the DT3 trial without purchasing a licence, can they now start again with the DT4 beta and run up 30 days, 150 hours, or (!!) the full duration of the beta period before they finally have to prise their tight fists open and commit with some cash?

Asking in my case for three categories of (academic) friends:

  1. DT-savvy younger colleagues on exploitative precarious contracts who’ve run out their trial period and have made the tough decision not to purchase till their finances are stabilised;
  2. DT-aware colleagues to whom I find myself saying “You could do all that in seconds in DEVONthink; here, let me show you” and then they suddenly find a reason to leave the room;
  3. colleagues who haven’t a clue about DT but who ought to be using it, and to whom I’d like to be able to give specific information about the limitations of the trial version while the DT4 beta is the promoted version for download. (In particular, I wonder whether best advice might be to use the legacy download link to the latest DT3 instead; it goes without saying, though I’d say it anyway, that the beta version, while stable, shouldn’t be trusted with mission-critical data.)

If it’s the case that the DT4 beta is effectively a less time- and feature-constrained trial version than the already generous DT3 trial terms, I can that this might not be something DEVONtech would want to yodel from the rooftops. It also may not be true! But I’d like to get the word out to interested colleagues and students, so it’d be useful to know the state of play.

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DEVONthink 4 is a beta, not a trial edition. It is also not intended for mission-critical or production use, though it is stable and you need to make that decision for yourself. There will be a trial period when the gold master version is publicly released.

DEVONthink 3 is a separate application and has no bearing on DEVONthink 4.

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Thanks! Yes, I take that completely on board, and would caution any new or post-trial users to that effect. But given that new users are presented with the beta rather than 3.9.9 as the version to download, it is the de facto current trial version, and not unreasonably so given its overall stability and feature-completeness. From the sound of it the timeout and feature limitations don’t apply for now, so it’s an absolute gift for a user who’s run out the trial, and indeed for anyone DT-curious who’s been hesitant and (ahem) waiting for the end of term, with which the beta drop has synchronised so perfectly here as almost to amount to coincidence.

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