[Info-vax] Online and Subscription Models (was: Re: Eisner's PAKs, ...)

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-01-21 20:49:01 +0000, johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk said:

> When was LMF introduced, I forget?

LMF was designed and built during the run-up to VAX/VMS V5.0, back in 
the mid-late 1980s.  VAX/VMS V5.0 itself shipped in 1988.

Discussions of the distinction between license enforcement and license 
management aside, LMF was one of the key features of VMS that allowed 
VMS Engineering and layered product groups and the DEC software 
distribution manufacturing folks to create and release the CD ConDist 
kits.

> [I know Hoff knows all this. Other readers may not.]

Various Loan of Products and Integrated Capacity On Demand (iCap) and 
other sorts of licenses were either tried or were available at various 
times over the years, and there were a number of other discussions.   
There are some LMF stories that are true head-scratchers — and even one 
or two humorous stories — but those are best left for another time.

Software packaging and user expectations around software and hardware 
licensing have changed over the ensuing years, but LMF really hasn't 
seen any significant modifications since, well, basically since its 
original release.   There've been a few minor LMF changes here and 
there, and a PAK generator did get tucked into VMS, but the original 
LMF design and the vast majority of the implementation has survived 
largely unscathed and unchanged.   There are some after-hours stories 
from behind the scenes in LMF too, but those are best left for another 
time.

Ease-of-use is not among the hallmarks of LMF.  But LMF does work, and 
— for what it does — it's reliable.

There are certainly going to be discussions around the packaging of VMS 
and layered products and whether that still makes sense, around support 
and entitlements, and hopefully around simpler and easier licensing, at 
VSI.  Doing what HP did is probably... easy... just to get V8.4-1H1 and 
some layered products out the door quickly, but whether VSI decides the 
existing licensing scheme is going to be appropriate over the 
longer-term?


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