Hi,
if you pay like 25% of the license cost as a annual maintenance fee for software, that usually gives you free upgrades (even major releases).
this should mean that the software company has to release a major version right? otherwise why would you pay for the annual maintenance fee?
No, it doesn't mean that they should or will release a new major version unless that is in your contract. They might only release minor versions or patches.
I do think that ethically they should release new major versions regularly, but I would look at their past release history.
A Software Maint fee often also gets you priority support which is a major part of what companies are paying for.
An annual maintenance fee guarantees exactly what it says in the contract, no more, no less. If your contract doesn't say it guarantees annual major updates, then you have no legal right, and very little moral right, to complain.
If you don't like it, buy somebody else's product or write your own.
Typically I would expect to get any major releases that happen, but I don't think you can expect anything.
For a start what's a major release? If you were to force someone to release a major version then they might just change the numbers in the about box and hit compile on what they have. That doesn't help anyone.
More and more we are seeing a trend to 'subscription' licensing anyway in which case the line between the one-off license and the maintenance fee is removed. I think this is a much better model in general, both for the software vendor and the customer.
I've found, at least in the "enterprise" world, that software maintenance does not get you major upgrades. It generally gets you minor ones, security patches, and support.