[Info-vax] Online and Subscription Models

[Chris Scheers]

johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk wrote:
> On Wednesday, 21 January 2015 16:21:07 UTC, Stephen Hoffman  wrote:
>> On 2015-01-21 16:44:45 +0000, Bob Koehler said:
>>
>>> In article <ci7k26FmpinU2 at mid.individual.net>, 
>>> bill at server3.cs.scranton.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
>>>> You mean like Microsoft's new model for their Office Product?
>>>    What's new about selling buggy software and then charging for
>>>    the "upgrade" that fixes some of the bugs?  MS has had that model
>>>    for decades.
>> Like Adobe, Microsoft is now offering online tools and a subscription 
>> service; Adobe Creative Cloud, and Microsoft Office360.  What's often 
>> called SaaS.
>>
>> It wouldn't surprise me to learn that VSI is or will be looking at 
>> subscription server monitoring and proactive maintenance notifications 
>> and other related services, and maybe also the capacity on demand 
>> support.  The existing VMS operating system and layered products and 
>> tools themselves don't lend themselves to SaaS online operations, short 
>> of running VMS guests on hosted servers.  It wouldn't be surprising to 
>> see some folks outsource VMS to VSI.   Though it would be entertaining 
>> to see a VMS PXE system boot directly from a remote VSI server.  (But 
>> how you'd sign and secure that path, given some of the current MITM 
>> shenanigans?)
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Pure Personal Opinion | HoffmanLabs LLC
> 
> When was LMF introduced, I forget? I know it was associated with (maybe
> prerequisite for) ConDist, whose introduction date I also forget.
> 
> What I do remember is that DEC had software rental a very long time ago.
> 
> It arrived with the VAXBI bus machines, if I remember rightly, and went 
> by the name of Periodic Payment Licence. 
> 
> It was long before the days of Interwebz so there's little easily-findable
> evidence of its existence (and, I presume, later demise).
> 
> But it was there.
> 
> Marginally more recently, you could buy an Alpha and later add more processors
> but they'd only do useful work under VMS once you'd got the SMP PAK. 
> 
> Remember, DIGITAL had it then.
> 
> [I know Hoff knows all this. Other readers may not.]

IIRC, LMF came with VMS 5.0.

Before that, various "licenses" were kits that replaced various .EXE files.

For example, the various MicroVAX user licenses were different 
LOGINOUT.EXE files.

A DECnet routing license replaced one of the executables.  (I don't 
remember which.)

With VMS 5.0, this was handled by LMF.

-- 
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Chris Scheers, Applied Synergy, Inc.

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