Buy Opera6 now, get 7 free
It has now been announced that upgrading from Opera6 to Opera7 will not be free.
Opera is currently running a promotion where you can buy Opera6 now and get Opera7 for free when it comes out. You also get a bunch of other goodies (see link above).
Also in that announcement is says that upgrades come at a discount. If you bought Opera6, you will not have to pay full price for Opera7.
There is also a note that you should not plan to get Opera8 for free if you buy Opera7 after it comes out. (Opera8 is not yet planned, but there has been some talk about people who were expecting a free upgrade to the next version and therefore holding off buying Opera7.)
It is a reality in the software world that full release upgrades generally are not free (just ask anyone who has owned Photoshop for awhile).
Users who bought version 5 received a free upgrade to version 6. That was nice of Opera to do, but was not an obligation, and no doubt hurt them financially (as do the people who post cracks and registration numbers on the web).
You can use Opera for free. It has ads. My understanding is that the ads are much less annoying than in other ad-sponsored programs.
If you have never bought Opera before, it will cost you $39USD. Students can buy it for $20.
How much will it cost to upgrade to version7? No word on that yet. Currently it costs $15 to upgrade from v4 to v6, but v6 to v7 might be different.
v7 represents a huge investment of resources by Opera. It has involved a code re-write from the basics. Charging for an upgrade is not unreasonable, in fact it is quite common in the software world.
Yes I wish Opera v7 would be free to everyone, but until there is someone who is willing to underwrite the cost of Opera Software's existence, they will have to deal with the realities of life and the costs of doing business.
†