From: dongray@cdclu1.genrad.com (Derek Dongray)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: DECwindows ==> Motif license upgrade
Date: 30 Jul 92 08:55:27 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

Yesterday I discovered that our DECwindows interface to NOTES had stopped
working. The reason? We were running Notes 2.2 with DECwindows XUI; the SPD
says that 2.2 requires Motif. We'd been running 2.2 with 5.4-2 for some time
and either nobody noticed that the DECwindows interface didn't work, or it
*did* work and only got broken when we upgrade the VMS 5.5.

Are we likely to see more products from DEC forcing us to go to Motif in the
future?

"The new windowing interface to DEBUG is really fast and much easier to use
than the character cell interface, you just need to be running Motif..."

"FileView now supports an icon-based interface similar to the Mac or MS-Windows
when running under Motif..."

"DECwindows/EVE now supports separate workstation windows when running Motif..."

While I accept that new functionality may require other software components to
be upgraded, the requirement to have a separate license on the client to
support a server running Motif seems unnecessarily restrictive. All of our
newer workstations *are* licensed to run Motif, but we can't upgrade because we
could not run the applications on the non-workstation hosts because they are
not licensed! Also while it is possible to run a mixed VWS/DECwindows cluster
it is not possible to run a mixed XUI/Motif cluster; if we upgrade, then the
older workstations which don't have Motif licenses are not usable.

An analogy to this situation would be DEC introducing a new VT520 terminal
which has an enhanced keyboard and understands an enhanced set of escape
sequences; however DEC programs will only use these escape sequences and accept
the new keycodes if you buy a new license for your Vax host and install a new
version of TTDRIVER.

Perhaps I shouldn't make such analogies. I might be putting ideas into the
heads of the marketing people at DEC ...

[Flame on]
Of course, I'm annoyed by the whole license scheme anyway. The idea that users
should pay more to the software developer because they've bought more powerful
hardware seems ridiculous to me. DEC may be able to argue that since they
develop both the hardware and the software, they have some justification in
having variable cost on software as well as hardware. But how a 3rd party
company can justify charging one amount to run code on one CPU and different
amount to run it on another is beyond me.

Would the PC market accept pricing which said "PCwidget will cost $100 if you
want to run it on a 386 at 12Mhz, but if you have a 50Mhz machine it will cost
you $500. Oh, and if you sell your machine and buy a more powerful one then
you'll have to buy a license upgrade, but you won't get any new code, just a
piece of paper"? Somehow, I don't think so.

An acceptable license scheme would either be concurrent-user based, e.g.
whatever the CPU size each extra logged in user or batch job costs $X, rate
limited, e.g. a mail program forwarding X messages per minute costs $Y, 2X
costs $2Y, or capacity limited, e.g. a database manager costs $X to support
every Y*10000 records. All of these would be limited by the CPU, but it's up
the the user to buy the approprate hardware to support their use. It is
possible to buy an unlimited VMS user license for a MicroVax II, but I don't
think you could have 200 users simultaneuously logged into one and have them do
anything at all!

However, I suspect that the current scheme is suffiently entrenched that it
won't be discarded. And anyway, it's to the software developers' benefit so why
should they change? On the VAX series, original development and most code
maintenance can be done on any model and (with a few execptions, e.g. device
drivers) the code will run on any other VAX. So most comapnies don't need to
buy VAX 6000s; they can develop their code on MicroVAXes and just rake in the
cash from people who have bought more powerful machines!
[Flame off]

Apologies to everyone who's heard this all before, but I felt a need to
complain to someone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name : Derek Dongray, Systems Manager, GenRad Ltd.
Phone : 061 486 1511 ext 166
PSS : 234261600119::Dongray                 UKnet : Derek.Dongray@GenRad.co.uk
InterNet : Dongray@cdclu1.GenRad.com        CompuServe : 70374,2745
Address : Monmouth House, Monmouth Road, Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, SK8 7AY, UK.