I don’t believe it. I was bummed out that my Renoise license had run out when I tried downloading 2.8… Well I paid for my new license and downloaded it and I am blown away! 
The very feature that I’ve been wanting all this time is now in Renoise! I can change column background colours!! How awesome!!
Thank you Renoise team!! This will be the most useful change ever in my book, simple as it sounds. (No pun intended!)
As there was no 1.7 your licence should not have ran out between 2.7 and 2.8!
I’d better have a chat with TakTik then. If I used it heaps (like I should) I could easily justify the spend but its been nearly 2 years since I did my last tune. Not saying that I won’t do any more, just had other priorities… Thanks.
There was no 1.7, but there was for sure a 1.5, 1.2, etc.
See the release notes:
Anyone who registered these old versions would not be eligible for a free upgrade to 2.8.
I think I bought release 1.51 or something. Oh well… I guess the money is going to a good cause! 
Hence why I specifically mentioned if you were using 2.7 you shouldn’t have had to. If Sparky had taken a hiatus and never downloaded 2.7 then of course there is a possibility he had reached the point to need to upgrade.
I just also want to say wow! My license ran out at version 2.0 and i was not producing any music since 2006 or so. I totally switched my desktop to ubuntu linux in the meantime, so renoise supporting linux is a big plus! Renoise is already awesome, now the scripting API opens even more doors for customization! Truely awesome! Sample layering is also very welcome. Renoise is fun to play! I love you, renois development team!