From: gibian@talent.ljo.dec.com (Marc S. Gibian)
Subject: Re: Summary from Licensing Workshop at LISA
Reply-To: gibian@ljohub.enet.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 18:27:39 GMT


All of the replies I have seen to my posting are very well stated.  They
each raise important issues... let me try to discuss and address them...

a.  I do not know why Digital was underrepresented at the LISA licensing
technical talk.  I can say that we are VERY interested in participating
in discussions of this topic in public forums such as LISA as well as in
individual contact.  Please feel free to contact either Frank Elms, at
(508) 486-6649, or myself regarding licensing.  Any event notices would
be welcome.

b.  I agree with the statement by Richard Elling that the burden of
obtaining desired license terms and conditions lies with the customer.
It is important that customers buy based not only on function, but on
ALL features of a product.  Negotiating/finding the right set of terms
and conditions is probably a big factor in making software purchases
when the install target is a site that wants to standardize the range
of t's & c's in their network.  This allows vendors to compete freely,
yet will push software vendors in the directions desired by their
customers.

c.  The last of Richard Elling's comments deals with the role of the
software licensing system vs. that of individual software vendors.  I
must disagree with his assertion that it is a feature of a software
licensing product to dictate the set of t's & c's under which a software 
vendor may choose to sell their software products.  Please keep in mind
the interactions between customers, software products, and software
licensing systems.  Even with the LS API standard, it is the software
product producers that choose which software licensing product(s) they
will use to license their software.  Richard's desire would make sense
if software licensing systems could be chosen directly by customers,
and it was a competitive advantage to a software licensing product to
impose limits on t's & c's.  Even in this case, though, I would argue
that the software licensing product should not impose a limited set
of t's & c's on the customer, but let the customer define those limits.
Just as each software producer has different definitions of what they
mean, and desire, in a "site license" or a "concurrent use license",
each customer has THEIR own definitions.  This I say from personal
experience working with customers.

d.  Hugh LaMaster quickly caught the fact that software licensing
systems are subject to various forms of attack, and that the ultimate
responsiblity for compliance is contained in the legal licensing
agreement the customer and vendor agree to when a software product
is purchased (or more often, licensed).  It is true that in most
cases the problem is one of "helping honest customers stay honest"
(I believe that's a quote from the LS API specification, or at
least a paraphrase).  Each software licensing system provides its
own level of security.  It is up to the software product producer,
and the demands made on them by their customers, to include this
as a factor in their choice of licencing product(s).  (Of course,
I hope everyone decides that Digital's latest licensing product
does exactly what software product producers and end customers
want, and does this better than our competition.  It certainly 
supports everything I see desired in this discussion...)

e.  Finally, I do not agree with the comments some have made regarding
standardization of licensing.  I believe the LS API is a sound and good
standard that reflects the model of successful standards.  It takes an
area where licensing products are quite similar in function, if not
specifics, and provides a standard that can be mapped into individual
software licensing products.  It provides various forms of compatibility
across licensing product WITHOUT restricting the features a software
licensing product may support.  I believe that attempts to standardize
other areas of licensing (see the LS API abstract licensing model for
details) DO NOT meet the criteria for being able to produce a successful
standard.  For each remaining area, there are huge divergences in the
software licensing products, and they are very feature specific.  Any
standard in these areas would impose very specific limitations on the
features a compliant software licensing product would be able to
offer.

--
Marc S. Gibian			email: gibian@talent.ljo.dec.com
Principal Software Engineer	phone: (508) 486-6598
Digital Equipment Corporation	fax:   (508) 486-6648  or (508) 486-6100


Newsgroups: comp.software.licensing