[Info-vax] VMS License Generator

[John Wallace]

On Jan 30, 7:53 pm, hel... at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---
undress to reply) wrote:
> In article <4f261430$0$2214$c3e8da3$a9097... at news.astraweb.com>, JF
>
> Mezei <jfmezei.spam... at vaxination.ca> writes:
> > > So you want to send the signal to HP that VMS hobbyists are not
> > > respecting licenses as a mean to force HP to provide legal licenses
> > > to avoid fake licenses being produced?
>
> > No. The message is different: if HP stops issuing legal hobbyist
> > licences, hobbyists will find other means to get their licences, and
> > those other means will be a questionable practice which may impact
> > commercial customers once it becomes known that you can issue your own
> > licences.
>
> The file-sharing crowd have similar feelings about the "content mafia"
> they claim is suppressing their freedom of speech.  Kim Schmitz is
> looking at a 14-year jail sentence.
>
> > Back in the 1960-1980s, nuclear bombs were seen as a deterrent that you
> > never planned to use.  A self-generated PAK should be seen as the same
> > way. HP knows we have that capability, and that gives HP the incentive
> > to continue to support the hobbyist programme so that self generate PAKs
> > remain unused and little known.
>
> Methinks the analogy is being stretched a bit.

[mostly a shorter and more direct version of what I wrote earlier]

Contributors seem to be getting a bit confused between the terms of
the licence (a legal document) and a technical mechanism which the VMS
operating system provides to (quoting DEC, paraphrasing only slightly)
"allow users to track their usage of licences for VMS and other
products".

It would be somewhat unwise for folk to use commercial software
without having at least seen (and preferably read and understood) the
terms of the licence which permits them to use that software.

Without knowing exactly what is in the hobbyist licence agreement
itself, how can it be possible to have a sensible discussion here? How
can it be sensible to install and use VMS and its layered products,
with or without an unauthorised-by-HP PAK or PAK-substitute, without
knowing the terms of the licence which permits use of that software?
If, for example, the licence says use is subject to a valid current
hobbyist PAK issued to the user by HP or its authorised delegate, then
it is immediately clear that use of the non-HP generator is breaking
the terms of the licence. Hopefully breaking the licence would be A
Bad Thing in most readers views.

If something along those lines is in the licence, then the various PAK-
independent workarounds being discussed here are ALSO breaking the
licence. That would also be A Bad Thing.

But enough speculation.

Where can an interested reader find the actual legal content of the
current HP-sponsored Hobbyist Licence? Not the PAK, not the PAK
generator, but the actual licence agreement under which permission to
use the software is granted.

I have had a very very quick look around and although I was able to
find the registration page for PAKs I could not quickly find the
actual hobbyist licence agreement text. Pointers very welcome.

[Apologies for any licence/license micc-cpellings]