Software Licensing

[DomitianX]

Our department is taking a look at our software licensing for the applications that we use.<br>
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Our department is of the Technical Support nature so we do not use any applications for profit making purposes. I was wondering if using a central server to house our applications is something that poeple have experience with.<br>
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We have quite a few applications we need to have to help our customers trouble shoot problems with our products.<br>
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Normally only one person is using the application at a time, so I think that having the application on the server and then who ever needs to use it would login into the server and launch the application. They would close it when they are done and then someone else could open it and use it.<br>
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Does anybody have any thoughts on how this would fit into normal software licensing? Obviously it would be best to have a licensed copy for everybody in our department but we are looking at $80,000 - $100,000 dollars to do so.<br>
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The apps we use are DTP applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, etc.<br>
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Thanks.

 

[MasterRacker]

This is a pretty gray area. You generally can't run an app without &quot;installing&quot; it. Even if you leave the files on a server, the Setup program has to be run on a machine to get the settings to that machine. In that situation, you would still need 5 copies for 5 machines so you might as well install them locally for better performance.<br>
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If you can script the installations, you can install from a server in a few minutes, so theoretically you could install and uninstall as needed.<br>
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There are also software metering programs that allow you to limit concurrent use of registered apps. You can use these if the EULA for the package allows it. That's a key however: every vendor has a different EULA and you have to look at each of them individually to see what they allow. <p> Jeff<br><a href=mailto: masterracker@hotmail.com> masterracker@hotmail.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[danno5]

At our offices we use Citrix. This allowed us to use winframes at each site. If you are unfamiliar with this a winframe is a direct link into the server, meaning that the user has no disc drive at their stations, but instead is working directly from the server's disc drive. Using the Citrix system we are able to load the software only once and then allow access NT user-manager style. <br>
To avoid any liscensing problems use a generic user with a generic password. You will need to make sure that your security is pretty tight as far as who can enter your system and if your doing any changes to any database that has been set up for these applications you may want to track who is making those changes. These are definate questions to research before you use any generic users.<br>
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Hope this helps.

 

[MasterRacker]

You can use a generic userid and allow 100 users to run an application but just because it works doesn't mean it's legal. The wording of the license may still require you to buy 100 licenses. Even under the terminal model, at a minimum you will still need to purchase as many licenses as concurrent users. <p> Jeff<br><a href=mailto: masterracker@hotmail.com> masterracker@hotmail.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[rjs]

Like the Citrix solution, but lower cost - would be to set up one PC in your office with all the required applications, then install pcAnywhere, NetMeeting or the like to provide remote control via TCP/IP over your LAN. If you do this, I would also recommend using Ghost to make an image of the common PC so that it can be quickly and easily restored to a clean state.

 

[Zelandakh]

I use a similar idea, but a different attachment than pcAnywhere or whatever. Have you tried VNC? Virtual Network Computing from the Oracle and Olivetti Research Labs.<br>
<br>
<A HREF="

http://www.iso.port.ac.uk/docs/downloaded/vnc/download.htm"

TARGET="_new">

http://www.iso.port.ac.uk/docs/downloaded/vnc/download.htm</A><br>

<br>

 

[danno5]

This is to MasterRacker, I was not implying that he should do ANYTHING illegal. If you read his question, he did say that there was only one concurrent user at a time. In some of the smaller applications they go by concurrent users and not by number of licensed users.

 

[MasterRacker]

Danno, you're right he did say one at a time. I get a little jumpy and try to be very clear on this subject, since I've actually had management types make requests to &quot;bend the rules&quot;. Unless you can get it in writing with a date and signature, us MIS types would be the ones to take the fall so we've got to be really careful....... <p> Jeff<br><a href=mailto: masterracker@hotmail.com> masterracker@hotmail.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[danno5]

MasterRacker - understood. You did make a good point though, I really don't know how you can keep from more the one user signing on especially if they are accessing a solutions database. I mean is there only one phone, or only one pc? In other words you did a fine job cautioning him.