molson@apollo.COM (Margaret Olson) (12/06/88)
Folks,
Our netnews has been ailing for the last few weeks, so some
of the comments on NLS never reached us. (We could get news
out, but nothing came in. It appears to be fixed now.) So
this response is based on a partial list of the responses
to Alan Holbrook's message. If anyone would like to resend
comments directly to me (molson@apollo.com) or Alan
(holbrook@apollo.com) please feel free to do so. We won't
necessarily find the time to reply both thoughtfully and promptly,
but we will consider you comments when thinking about future
versions of the product.
Since I am responding to a few messages here, this is rather long.
umix!richter.MIT.EDU!krowitz (David Krowitz) writes:
>Could NLS be used with products such as GMR and 3D GMR, where the
>only difference between a development license and a runtime license
>is whether or not you have the necessary insert files?
In a word - no. Barring ugly hacks, NLS can only be used to
license products that have some executable component. It sounds
to me like the GMR and 3D GMR development products have no
executable component. But please note - I know next to nothing
about those two products.
umix!imax.eng.uiowa.edu!timv (Tim VanFosson)
>As I understand the situation the University contracted with Apollo
>to provide the *keys* to use in unlocking a software product that we
>were considering purchasing. The reason being that the per-node pricing
>was somewhat beyond the realm of the ridiculous.
Marketing is in the process of changing the terms used to describe
NLS, since the 'hook' and 'key' terminology is very confusing. The
product called 'NLS' is the runtime half of the system. It is sold
for more or less the price of media and documentation. Application
vendors provide licenses (keys, in the old terminology) for products
they sell that are licensed with NLS. For every application license
there must be one NLS license (hook, in the old terminology). There
are two ways to get NLS licenses: either the application vendor can cut
a deal with Apollo and bundle the NLS license with the application
licenses, or the application vendor can instruct end-users to buy
NLS licenses separately from Apollo. Apollo currently has no products
licensed with NLS, so we are not selling application licenses (keys)
to anyone. We are selling NLS licenses.
If I had to guess, I would say that U of Iowa is considering purchasing
a product that is licensed with NLS, because the node-locked price
is prohibitive. The vendor of this software has not made a deal with
Apollo for bundled NLS licenses, so NLS licenses must be purchased
separately from Apollo. (The purchase of the NLS licenses did fall into
a snag here at Apollo. We looked into why this happened, and I don't
think it will happen again.)
(The application vendor's half of the licenseing system is called LSLOCK.)
umix!imax.eng.uiowa.edu!timv (Tim VanFosson)
>especially in an environment where cost concerns would preclude the
>possibility of obtaining node-locked software for small, frequently-
>used applications.
All software, at least all software sold by Apollo, is licensed
already. Apollo software is nodelocked with no enforcement. If
you can afford enough compilers and utility programs now, you will
be able to afford them once NLS licensing is implemented. Remember
that NLS supports both nodelocked and concurrent-use licenses, and
only concurrent use licenses require a license server.
NLS does add overhead, and whether or not that overhead is worth
the convenience of having concurrent use licenses is an end-user
decision. The answer depends on the price of the software and your
usage patterns.
umix!caen.engin.umich.edu!frank (Randy Frank)
>I think that while Apollo's NLS is an excellent technical idea, their marketing
>strategy in for the birds.
I have passed this message on to our marketing organization. We came
out with a new kind of product, and made some mistakes pricing and
organizing the various pieces of the product. This is being fixed;
look for announcements in the near future.
Margaret Olson
Apollo R & D
molson@apollo.com
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