[Info-vax] Eisner's PAKs, was: Re: Can't get hobbyist licenses from Openvmshobbyist

[David Froble]

John Reagan wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 9:41:59 AM UTC-5, David Froble wrote:
> 
> 
>> I'm going to suggest that the entire PAK system with VMS be junked.
>> Now before anyone has a hissy fit, consider.
>> 
>> Any legitimate commercial user of VMS is going to "follow the
>> rules". That's just the way it is, and if they are not, well, what
>> has been lost?
>> 
> 
> Unfortunately, that isn't the truth.  We had several legitimate
> commercial customers who wanted some license management facility to
> track all their licenses.  They were unsure of what they had (and
> perhaps HP was unsure as well?) and an architected solution to
> manipulate licenses was invented.  The additional aspects of version
> dates, release notes, etc. was all to help customers stay 'legal'.
> The added 'benefit' of using LMF as a way to prevent piracy was a
> secondary goal.  Later on, we realized that LMF also allowed new ways
> to license/sell products with things like per-user licensing,
> per-node licensing, icap, etc.
> 
> John (who was part of the original group who designed these things)

All I'm saying is that preventing usage is non-productive.  So use the 
LMF to track what's installed.  Even better, include much more in the 
base distribution.

Similar case.  Microsoft giving away free IE.  Why?  To increase market 
share.  To get people using MS products.

Long gone are the days when you could sell OS software for big bucks. 
Much better is recurring revenue.