Discoverer 3.1 licenses

Whether Oracle chooses to accept it or not there are lots of organizations who are still using Discoverer 3.1 and, at least for now, have no intention of upgrading. These organizations all bought legal copies of the software and have done nothing wrong. However, I was amazed to hear that Oracle is refusing to take new revenue from those organizations in an attempt to force them to upgrade.

I was contacted today by one such organization who wanted to purchase additional Desktop licenses for 3.1. When they contacted Oracle they were told that because Oracle no longer sells 3.1 they cannot purchase those additional licenses. They're not asking for new software, they're not asking for support, all they want is to add extra users to their system. Remember that Desktop is priced at $1,000 per named user. This makes me wonder how much revenue Oracle has turned away in the past couple of years since 3.1 went out of support.

Anyway, Oracle's loss of revenue is not the issue in this posting. My dilemma is the advice that I should give to the organization that contacted me? Seeing as Oracle seem to be washing their hands of 3.1, does this give the organization the green light to go ahead and keep adding the extra users until they are ready to upgrade? Do I tell them that they must hurt their own business by only using the licenses they have already purchased? Do I tell them that they must upgrade? Seeing as Desktop has hardly changed since 3.1 and the cost of the license is identical I don't see any reason to force them to upgrade when they are not using Plus. What do you think?