From: lamaster@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Hugh LaMaster)
Subject: Re: Summary from Licensing Workshop at LISA
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 20:49:13 GMT

In article <1992Nov5.002744.6991@news.duc.auburn.edu>, elling@eng.auburn.edu (Richard Elling) writes:
|> In article 2181@sousa.ltn.dec.com, gibian@talent.ljo.dec.com (Marc S. Gibian) writes:
|> >
|> >A few comments on Dinah McNutt's posting on this workshop:


|> >3.  A software licensing product should only support/enforce the terms and 
|> >conditions a vendor may wish to use as their business model.  Just as
|> >trying to standardize terms and conditions is inhibiting to the conduct
|> >of business by vendors, so too would a software licensing product that
|> >forces a fixed model, or set of models, on a vendor.
|> 
|> I disagree.  The software licensing product should support the policies
|> of the sites they wish to sell to.  Simply, if you can't please the 
|> customer, you can't sell the software.  Unfortunately, the license
|> manager market has not matured to the point where vendors and customers
|> can agree on, and can implement, mutually beneficial licensing policies.
|> 
|> Given that any license management scheme can be subverted, what site
|> administrators really want is a method for helping assure compliance
|> to license agreements.  What this method looks like is up to folks like
|> the folks who hang out on comp.software.licensing to work out.

I agree with this completely.  The *customer* has the legal and moral
responsibility of adhering to the software vendor's license.  And, as
has been discussed previously, any (affordable) LM scheme CAN be
subverted if the customer really wants to.  The point is to make it
convenient for the customer to enforce the licensing agreement.  The 
customer also wants to do this efficiently, with as little system
administrator (SA) effort as possible.  For example, the customer 
may want to run a shop with 600 workstations, and a few servers, 
and perhaps 20-30 commercial software packages, some with only one or
two simultaneous users expected, others with many, and with, say, 3 system
administrators.  By providing the right kinds of control, and the right
information to both the SA *and the users*, the effort is minimized.
You had better believe that cost of support is something that is 
figured into the equation with other requirements when products are 
selected.  If one software package has a few more user features, but 
takes a lot more SA effort than another package, guess which one will 
be selected.  Ease of administration is a feature, too.

I was surprised that in the LISA summary, the functionality provided
by the FrameMaker license manager was not discussed, since it provides,
for that product, exactly the functionality needed by many customer
sites.  I have described it previously in this group, so I will refrain
from discussing it again, but, please take note that the Frame LM
is very convenient to SA's, and therefore has a significant advantage
over other distributed license managers which may meet the requirements 
of the "vendor ... business model" better.

Standardizing the interface to software products and license managers 
will have the effect of making it easier for customers to support more 
software products with less SA effort, which means more money available
for products since less is spent on SA.  It will therefore mean increased
software sales, which will, in most cases, more than compensate the
software vendors for the fact that the standard LM does not fit their
"business model" perfectly.**

|> ---
|>  Richard Elling                          Manager of Network Support
|>  Auburn University                       Engineering Administration
|>  richard.elling@eng.auburn.edu   KB4HB [44.100.0.72]  (205)844-2280
|> 

** Footnote:  This isn't different from any other standard, really.
Standards inevitably mean a mismatch between the ideal matching of user
requirements vendor solutions.  However, standards compensate for this
by lowering costs.

-- 
  Hugh LaMaster, M/S 233-9,     UUCP:      ames!lamaster
  NASA Ames Research Center     Internet:  lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov
  Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000  Or:        lamaster@george.arc.nasa.gov 
  Phone:  415/604-1056                     #include <usenet/std_disclaimer.h> 
Newsgroups: comp.software.licensing