[Info-vax] PATHWORKS 32 Licensing

[John E. Malmberg]

On 1/6/2013 8:45 AM, Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2013-01-06 14:16:58 +0000, John E. Malmberg said:
>
>> On 1/6/2013 2:25 AM, Bart Zorn wrote:
>>>
>>> AFAIK, every Alpha system came with licenses for 3 PathWorks
>>> clients,
>>> which included the use of PowerTerm. On the last PathWorks32 CD there
>>> was PowerTerm V5.6, which included SSH. I am still using it, although it
>>> has some issue on Windows7.
>>
>> While I have seen some Alpha systems bundled with various with various
>> Pathworks and Pathworks 32 licenses, I have not seen a general
>> bundling of it.  Can you find any documentation of that?
>
> Though there were almost certainly packages of hardware and software
> that included the PATHWORKS32 and other licenses, I've (also) never
> heard of any general bundling of the PATHWORKS 32 client licenses with
> OpenVMS.
>
> I also don't see any relevent PW licenses listed in the LMF group table,
> which was (and probably still is) the easiest way to blanket-license a
> product, if the vendor (DEC, Compaq or HP) was going to offer that.

Pathworks 32 clients can not read the LMF table, and from what I can 
determine, no license key enforcement was implemented for the product.

> The PATHWORKS 32 client package was also — per the PATHWORKS 32 Software
> Product Description <http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/pw32spd.pdf> —
> licensed for each PC involved, and not each server.  Which would mean
> any packaged licenses would have to be tied to particular PCs.
>
> The PATHWORKS Server (Advanced Server) package was — per the OpenVMS
> Software Product Descriptuon
> <http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/spdalphaintegrity84.pdf> — a separately
> licensed package.  No other PATHWORKS references are included in the
> OpenVMS 8.4 SPD.  PATHWORKS Server has been superceded by the Samba /
> CIFS server package, and no license is required for Samba / CIFS server.
>
> I can find no references the packages that Johnnie is referencing, and
> would (also) be interested in details.  (Not that I have any Microsoft
> Windows boxes in regular use here, but some folks I work with do still
> use Windoiws for some of their operations.)

I seem to recall one of the AlphaServers running VMS that was purchased 
at a previous employer coming with licensing papers for a small number 
of Pathworks 32 clients.

I also seem to remember advertising collateral distributed by Digital 
with that bundle.

IIRC there was specific licensing paperwork that accompanied those 
systems.  Buried in all the other stuff that people tend to throw away 
of course.

The PATHWORKS licensing situation was complicated:

1. VMS systems were licensed to run the Pathworks Servers, but required 
a Pathworks client access license of some type to access them.

2. IIRC: There was a Pathworks client media kit that may have included a 
client access license (or may not have) that was superceeded by 
Pathworks 32 that did not include the client access license.

3. There were several types of client access licenses including:
     a. License that allowed a specific client access to a specific server.
     b. License that allowed a specific client access to a number of 
servers.
     c. License that allowed a maximum number of clients access to a 
specific server.

Client licenses for Pathworks server were regulated by Microsoft as 
Pathworks Server is licensed from Microsoft through a third party.

With the last version of Advanced Server, it may have been possible to 
convert the type "a" above to type "b".  I seem to remember having to 
get new license keys from Digital for systems under support contracts.

Sometime during this, for some reason Digital or who ever owned them at 
the time put the Pathworks32 package on their public FTP site with no 
restrictions.

This was noticed by several posters on this forum which incorrectly 
interpreted it that Pathworks 32 was free now, as the software in it 
does not require license keys.

Regards,
-John
wb8tyw at qsl.network
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