Fin

Freeway
1

To all our friends, partners and customers:

The end of Softpress Systems Ltd. has come. It has become clear that our prospects, both in terms of current revenue and new product development, are insufficient to sustain the company as a viable entity going forward.

It is with great sadness that we have made this decision; Softpress has been a part of our lives for over two decades. The challenges that we have overcome, the friendships we have found, and the daily efforts we have shared as a team, have defined much of our lives since 1993. Some of our team have been “on duty” here at Softpress Towers since the beginning.

We will do our best to ensure that users can get community support in the short term through FreewayTalk, though there are no plans to further develop our products at this time. Customer downloads will continue to be available.

We wish we could do more. Who knows what comes next?

Thank you for your support over these many years.

For the whole of the Softpress Team,

Richard Logan and Joe Billings

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2

This is a very VERY sad day ive been using freeway since it came out and I still use it everyday. its been my tool of choice for all that time. I hope there is a way forward, but I suspect the community wont actualy put there hands into there pockets to make that happen. If that couldn’t happen then some other way forward may be found even if the application could be made free to download. At least the community could carry on for some preiod of time .

If not then it will be a big blow to all those people who rely on it.
kindest regards from a very down in the dumps max

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3

I’m very sorry for Softpress to read this Joe. I’ve used Freeway since
version 3 and still using. I want to thank you for all your effort for
making Freeway for what it is nowadays. All the best for you and your team.
Andries
Op 4 jul. 2016 16:14 schreef “Joe Billings” email@hidden:

To all our friends, partners and customers:

The end of Softpress Systems Ltd. has come. It has become clear that our
prospects, both in terms of current revenue and new product development,
are insufficient to sustain the company as a viable entity going forward.

It is with great sadness that we have made this decision; Softpress has
been a part of our lives for over two decades. The challenges that we have
overcome, the friendships we have found, and the daily efforts we have
shared as a team, have defined much of our lives since 1993. Some of our
team have been “on duty” here at Softpress Towers since the beginning.

We will do our best to ensure that users can get community support in the
short term through FreewayTalk, though there are no plans to further
develop our products at this time. Customer downloads will continue to be
available.

We wish we could do more. Who knows what comes next?

Thank you for your support over these many years.

For the whole of the Softpress Team,

Richard Logan and Joe Billings

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Information for existing FreewayTalk / Groups.io users - Site Feedback - Softpress Talk

freewaytalk mailing list
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Update your subscriptions at:
https://freewaytalk.softpress.com/person/options

4

I’m really sorry to see you go. It’s been 14 years since I began using this application and have told lots of people about it. I literally logged on to get support for a missing serial number when I saw the message.

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5

So sad. And a little bit shocked. I mourn with you. Leif

On 4 Jul 2016, at 16:15, Joe Billings wrote:

To all our friends, partners and customers:

The end of Softpress Systems Ltd. has come. It has become clear that
our prospects, both in terms of current revenue and new product
development, are insufficient to sustain the company as a viable
entity going forward.

It is with great sadness that we have made this decision; Softpress
has been a part of our lives for over two decades. The challenges that
we have overcome, the friendships we have found, and the daily efforts
we have shared as a team, have defined much of our lives since 1993.
Some of our team have been “on duty” here at Softpress Towers
since the beginning.

We will do our best to ensure that users can get community support in
the short term through FreewayTalk, though there are no plans to
further develop our products at this time. Customer downloads will
continue to be available.

We wish we could do more. Who knows what comes next?

Thank you for your support over these many years.

For the whole of the Softpress Team,

Richard Logan and Joe Billings

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Information for existing FreewayTalk / Groups.io users - Site Feedback - Softpress Talk

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
https://freewaytalk.softpress.com/person/options

6

Hasta la vista amigo!

A blow over the years have used this tool as one of the supports of my design studio I have clients and projects in development. But best of all was the team of Softpress that was always present in support. Thank you

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7

Very sad news indeed. I’ve been a Freeway user since the (original) version 3 and will honestly struggle to find anything even faintly comparable. Mightn’t it be possible for Walter to resume the hosting of FreewayTalk even in the short term?

Thanks for everyone at Softpress and here’s hoping the Freeway community will continue for as long as the software can continue to be persuaded to “just work”.

Gordon
http://www.gordonlow.com/

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8

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for building a ladder to the stars. Freeway, to some extent, and the community around it, largely, have been responsible for my growth as an artist and technician and teacher. I would not be where I am today without it, and all of you.

Richard Logan, who was one of my anchor clients when I (forcibly) went freelance in 2002… thank you again.

All of you in Oxford, past and present, who had the audacity to make WYSIWYG a non-dirty word in Web design… thank you again. I learned a lot of HTML by dissecting the output of Freeway, starting with version 1.

ActionsForge will remain “on the air” as long as it continues to attract an audience. It does not cost very much for me to keep it running. If I ever take it down, I will post a static archive on Github or similar, so it can live on on someone else’s nickel.

It’s going to take a while for this to sink in, I’m sure I’ll have more to say later.

Walter

On Jul 4, 2016, at 10:15 AM, Joe Billings email@hidden wrote:

To all our friends, partners and customers:

The end of Softpress Systems Ltd. has come. It has become clear that our prospects, both in terms of current revenue and new product development, are insufficient to sustain the company as a viable entity going forward.

It is with great sadness that we have made this decision; Softpress has been a part of our lives for over two decades. The challenges that we have overcome, the friendships we have found, and the daily efforts we have shared as a team, have defined much of our lives since 1993. Some of our team have been “on duty” here at Softpress Towers since the beginning.

We will do our best to ensure that users can get community support in the short term through FreewayTalk, though there are no plans to further develop our products at this time. Customer downloads will continue to be available.

We wish we could do more. Who knows what comes next?

Thank you for your support over these many years.

For the whole of the Softpress Team,

Richard Logan and Joe Billings

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
Information for existing FreewayTalk / Groups.io users - Site Feedback - Softpress Talk

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
https://freewaytalk.softpress.com/person/options

9

I know this comes at a difficult time for you but I’m looking for some tech support. My computer was destroyed last week and I logged on this Saturday to retrieve Freeway Pro and my serial number. Obviously I haven’t gotten a reply and the serial number that I have is only for version 5 of Freeway.

I tried using my backed up version of Freeway but it won’t activate without the serial number and I don’t know where that sort of thing is stored on the system of a backup.

This is pretty serious for me. Is there anyway to get the serial number for version 7 back?

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10

Hi Tom,

If you email sales(a)softpress.com using the email address you purchased
with you will get an automated reply with your serial number in it.

Thanks everyone else for the kind words.

Joe
On Mon, 4 Jul 2016 at 4:36 pm, Tom Byrne email@hidden wrote:

I know this comes at a difficult time for you but I’m looking for some
tech support. My computer was destroyed last week and I logged on this
Saturday to retrieve Freeway Pro and my serial number. Obviously I haven’t
gotten a reply and the serial number that I have is only for version 5 of
Freeway.

I tried using my backed up version of Freeway but it won’t activate
without the serial number and I don’t know where that sort of thing is
stored on the system of a backup.

This is pretty serious for me. Is there anyway to get the serial number
for version 7 back?

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Information for existing FreewayTalk / Groups.io users - Site Feedback - Softpress Talk

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11

Oh that’s a tough one. I could handle the loss at football, half of parliament going and the EU exit (at a push) but this is a bit much.

Oh well, it’s been emotional and I’d just like to wish everyone over at Softpress the very best for the future. You’re a bright bunch and I suspect have many more strings to your collective bows.

I’d be interested to know what the exit plans are as I’m sure there is life in this old community still. As someone who’s been close to the action (literally) since 1999 I’m keen to see something emerge from this.
All the very best,
Tim.

On 4 Jul 2016, at 15:15, Joe Billings email@hidden wrote:

To all our friends, partners and customers:

The end of Softpress Systems Ltd. has come. It has become clear that our prospects, both in terms of current revenue and new product development, are insufficient to sustain the company as a viable entity going forward.

It is with great sadness that we have made this decision; Softpress has been a part of our lives for over two decades. The challenges that we have overcome, the friendships we have found, and the daily efforts we have shared as a team, have defined much of our lives since 1993. Some of our team have been “on duty” here at Softpress Towers since the beginning.

We will do our best to ensure that users can get community support in the short term through FreewayTalk, though there are no plans to further develop our products at this time. Customer downloads will continue to be available.

We wish we could do more. Who knows what comes next?

Thank you for your support over these many years.

For the whole of the Softpress Team,

Richard Logan and Joe Billings

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
https://freewaytalk.softpress.com/person/options

12

On 4 Jul 2016, at 17:41, Joe Billings wrote:

Thanks everyone else for the kind words.

Is this outcome (also) related to changes that the upcoming macOS Sierra
is introducing?

leif halvard silli

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13

I’m shocked. I’ve been using Freeway since betas of version 1, and I genuinely thought it would be around for many years to come. I’ve had Softpress as a part of my life for, what, 19 years - both as a user and an employee (on and off).

Like Walter, this will take some time to sink in. I’ll probably have more to say in a while, but for now I’m very sad that this decision has had to be made.

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14

So sorry to read this news. I’ve been away from Freeway (and site building in general for a while). I’m 6 months from retirement and was really looking forward to getting back into web design with the best program I’ve ever used.
But…everything does come to an end eventually. Wish all the people at Softpress the very best. I just hope I’m not to old to learn new tricks?

And here’s a quote for all that I’ve been relying on for the past few months. “I thought getting old would take longer!”

All the best to all.

Chod Lang in New Jersey (retiring to Portugal)

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15

Sad. Freeway helped me as with many, many, others move from DTP to web publishing. It was an awesome tool to accomplish this. So I thank all the softpress team and their amazing customer service. THANK YOU.

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16

Dear Joe, wow this is a shock!

I am certain you have massive reasons. But this is a sad day for us all.

Freeway was the main tool to start my professionell business as grafic- and webdesigner with FW 3.5 many years ago.
As non native english speaker being from Germany it was not easy at the beginning to get in to it. But through your support, the FW website, the wonderful community I made it.

I have met many good and helpful people, I have met Thomas Kimmich also 10 years ago and because he is german too, we exchanged a lot since then via telephone.
I follow the postings on a daily basis and although the „meetings“ are not live - we all sit alone in front of our descs - it feels like a big family, Max, Tim, Dave, Walter, Ernie, Richard, Caleb, Todd and many others has become familiar to me, I am more a reader than a writer though. We lived and shared the ups and downs, didn`t we?

Thank you so much Joe and the Softpressteam, your work has been more than great!

Now 10 years later after the start of my design studio I am responsible for a big bunch of clients, 95% of them with websites I made with FW and which I still update on a regular basis.
It is my business I rely on for a living! And this is eventually true for many of us. The news unsettle and worry me to be honest.

• How long will I be able to update my clients websites when FW is not further developed?
• Does that mean I have to learn painfully another application? (I would not know which.)
• How can I explain this to my clients?
• I am afraid that there will be a mountain of (perhaps unpaid) work because I cannot let my clients down.

Possibly these questions resume from the first shock and will be eventually answered…

But I cannot believe this and I hope from the bottom of my heart that there is way that this application will still be alive in the future.
Not only for me but for all of us!

Hanna

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17

My initial thoughts are not to upgrade your Macs to Sierra until someone knowns that it will continue to work. You don’t HAVE to upgrade the OS on your Macs, you know :wink:

Another strategy would be to create a virtual machine (using VirtualBox - https://www.virtualbox.org - or similar) with Freeway on it, and keep that for any web work if moving to a new version of macOS is vital for other activities you have.

Freeway will continue to work if you have a machine that it will work on. It just won”t get any new updates, bug fixes, etc… So your short to mid-term use of the application is assured if you adopted a preservation strategy.

You will need to start considering what application to move to in your post-Freeway future, and transition projects to that.

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18

I’m sad to learn about the passing away of such a powerful and absolutely promising piece of software. Underestimated as it was, it had a lot of work to be done to even compete with the apps of today … let’s be honest. But I’d would have seen rather see Freeway on top, the support and the community itself is in a league of it’s own.

I’m shocked, yet not surprised.

Richard

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19

Let me add to the general dismay and say, that I for one, am perfectly happy to buy FW7 again at full price if there’s any way to turn this around. I’m devastated.

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20

Me too, David!

Hanna

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