kaiser@cheese.enet.dec.com (09/06/89)
In article <8909060534.AA08641@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, OBERMAN@ICDC.LLNL.GOV ("Kevin Oberman, LLNL, 422-6955", 415) writes... >There is no host id. The simple fact is that any PAK may be loaded >on any system. It has no idea what system it's on. THERE IS NO INTERNAL SYSTEM >IDENTIFIER! Right. And the documentation (will it make me unpopular to mention TFM?) says clearly that LMF is a management tool to help installations keep track of their licenses, NOT the IRON FIST of Digital in the VELVET GLOVE of software :-)! One such manual, part of every VMS doc set at any level, is the "VMS License Manage- ment Utility Manual, AA-LA33x-TE (x=A for VMS 5.0, B for 5.2). |Anyone who thinks that the LMF is a tight licensing system has not looked at it |closely. Or listened to DEC who has said that it's easy to beat. DEC has talked |(off the record) about making LMF available for thrid party software vendors, |but to this point I imagine that they're too busy trying to solve all the |screwed up licenses for their own products to try to take on someone else's. Right again. There was lively internal debate about (what's now) LMF long before it saw the light of day. The question was one of basic attitude toward the customers: should we assume that -- customers will abuse their licences and pirate software, so LMF should be an uncrackable method of tight enforcement; or that -- customers are (almost all) honest, there actually is very little willful abuse, and make LMF a tool to help installations just MANAGE their licenses? Obviously we opted for the latter. Part of the research that led to LMF was to go out to lots of installations and, with their enthusiastic cooperation, do audits of what software they had installed, against their actual licenses. You will be shocked, no doubt, to hear that most of them were seriously screwed up, and actually wanted all the help we could give them to straighten out the mess. They WANTED to have things straight and be in compliance with their contracts. With LMF there's some hope of accomplishing this. ---Pete kaiser@cheese.enet.dec.com DEC, 2 Mt. Royal Ave. (UPO1-3), Marlboro MA 01752-9108 508-480-4345 (machine: 617-641-3450)