In spite of what I said above, I do think that if a programmer ceases support of a product they should either make an unprotected full version available for distribution or else continue to provide unlock codes for either free or a minimal fee for anyone who wants one because frequently non-commercial software is the only software available that does what you want to do and once it is no longer supported and the only versions available are crippled or protected then everyone is stuck without it's use until someone writes a new program to fill the gap which may never happen. They should also make provision that in the event of their death their software will be made available in unprotected form.