phew!

[Kurt Lidl]

In article <2834 at rodan.acs.syr.edu> amichiel at rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen) writes:
>In article <1990Apr7.081638.1374 at eng.umd.edu> smaug at eng.umd.edu (Kurt Lidl) writes:
>>Why does the ugly spectre of VMS licensing agreements have to
>>rear it head in U*ix?  I want a nice little (?) operating system
>>that will just run the damn code that I put on it, without
>>seeing how many "users" are logged into the machine and so forth.
> 
>   Sorry, I sorta disagree strongly.  I see what you are trying to say, etc,
>but there are other considerations.  I see & talk to every day many many
>individuals & companies from all walks of life, that think nothing of the
>value of software products.  They don't even think twice before stealing 
>software for anything from anyone.  They roll over & die or scream & whine 
>like a stuck pig when they hear the price of software products.  It seems
>the more something costs the more willing they are to steal it.

Hey, *everyone* is entitled to their opinions!

   I am not advocating stealing software.  I am talking about limiting
the productivitiy of a machine, because it will not let me log into
it more than twice, under the default system licensing.  The machine
in question -- a MicroVax II, with *no* console -- just a serial
line hooked up to a tty port on a SparcStation-1.
   I log into the uVax, and try to compile some of the C-News release on
it.  Something doesn't work.  So I login again in another window.
Fire up the editor.  I try to login again for access to the man
pages...  And the licensing system refuses to let me on, because
"two" users are already logged into the machine.  It is this basic
Operating System constrait that gets to me...
   I must be in a really special situation -- I don't care what a
package costs the University.  When someone drops a tape on my desk,
all I think is: How hard is it going to be to install it all and make
it work properly on our network?  The higher-ups in the University
are the people who care about the dollars and cents of each new
software package.  Not me.  I respect the time and effort that go
into making a good product.  However, I resent having to spend my
time covering for software writers who assume that "all systems
will be configured this way!"  I respect the needs of the companies
that write good software.  The companies that write bad software
and charge just as much are the ones that really irrate me.

>    The real problem compounds from here.  If I make a good software product,
>and intend to charge a reasonable price for it, so that I can provide support
>etc.  I have to have every system that runs it, pay for it.  If I have
>stolen software, I have to charge more to every honest person to pay for
>the stolen copies.

   Yes, I understand about high costs of writing and maintaining software
on multiple OS and hardware bases.  I understand that it takes
a lot of effort to come up with a product that is portable, reliable,
fast & efficient for so many different architectures.  We
try to develop and maintain software under 5 different architechtures
here where I work... It is not an easy job.  I know.
   I think that software development is a high-cost area, and will most
likely stay that way.  Some companies seem to make a lot of money
selling software in the source form, without excessive site licensing
agreements and so forth.

>   I am not saying that you are a crook, the I recognize the fact that many 
>many many people are.  I see system after system that the people are kinda
>stuck at old system versions because all the software they have is stolen.
>(& the new systems have license managers)  These same people are the ones that
>are always calling me with stupid questions that would, could, & should be
>answered quite quickly just by cracking the stupid manual.  Since the software
>is stolen of course the manuals don't exist.

   I personally think that a *lot* of the money spent on licensing
software should be folded into the production process way back in
the documentation stage...  I am *tired* of trying to install software
that has nearly undecipherable instructions for installation, and even
worse written documentation...  Even more frustrating is the software
that comes with a one-sheet that says:  "untar the tape into the
current directory with 'tar xvf /dev/nrst0' and then type 'install_me'".
  I almost always have to go through the installation script and
hand-tune sections of it to reflect our situation.  I have a *real*
dislike of having to human-interpret bourne shell commands to figure
out what a install script is going to do...  I have better things
to do with my time than massage a script written by someone who spent
twenty hours writing licensing checking code instead of writing a
decent README document for the software.

>When the license manager keeps you from running your stupid bits of
>code, either it's a very temporary situation (my experiences are that dec is
>very helpful with pak #'s via phone as are all better vendors), or your system
>manager needs replacing, else you are trying to steal software.  If you have
>problem a. a little patience is all that's required, if it problem b. you have
>a employee problem & shouldn't blame your software vendor, if it's problem c.
>I have no pity at all for crooks.

   Most of the "stupid bits of code" that I am interesting in running on
our Ultrix machines deal with being able to compile software (ie:
cc and friends) and being able to talk to the other machines on our
network, through various well-defined services...  Thus, I need to log
into a machine to compile -- Ultrix will not let me doe this more than twice.
Why?  I don't know.  All of our Suns will allow me to login as many
times as I want...
   Limiting the number of people who can access the C compiler on a U*ix
system is really quite alien to me.  Is there a real justification?
We are an academic installation.  We are trying to teach people how
to use computers to enhance their studies.  We are not trying to
abuse companies by installing their software into a hugh network
that violates their licensing agreement with the University.

>   I for one applaud DEC and all other software vendors that provide trouble
>free theft protection for their products.  In my experience, dec's license 
>manager does just that.

   This may be a "good way" of doing things for licensing software
products that are bought in addition to the basic U*ix platform, but
pretty horrible for the U*ix system itself.  I haven't seen any really
good license servers for a distributed network -- broadcast based servers
have a tendency to precipitate broadcast storms (at least from what
I can figure out from my readings and experience), file-locking ones
regularly fail in our multiple server configuration and so forth...

>This is akin to copy protection, companies that used
>schemes that worked well (that didn't require constant stupid key disks or
>limit the number or backups etc.) survived that holocaust well.

   Intelligent license managers for third-party products have a place.
I am not trying to argue that.  Buying a "ten user" license for a
network sits fine with me.  As long as it is reliable.  But this
doesn't sit well with me for the basic OS.

							-Kurt

Naturally, nothing that I say or think represents Official Policy
of the University of Maryland, College Park Campus.  They just pay
me to keep their network running, not to think :-)
--
/* Kurt J. Lidl (smaug at eng.umd.edu) | Unix is the answer, but only if you */
/* UUCP: uunet!eng.umd.edu!smaug    | phrase the question very carefully. */