[Info-vax] Use of media with licenses

[David Froble]

Stephen Hoffman wrote:
> On 2016-11-08 18:23:48 +0000, David Turner said:
> 
>> That was my take on the matter
>> So it literally comes down to the date you purchase the license
>> I am placing an order for the "old" version of VMS 8.4.
>> So in theory, since the patches have not been updated since APril 
>> 2016, the license is good for all versions of 8.4 up to the date of 
>> the purchase
>>
>> HPE is totally unhelpful with this. I cannot even get hold of anyone 
>> anywhere at HP (even Renew and Refurb) and they are unable to explain 
>> or help with their policies
>>
>> Methinks this is going to help VSI even more. It is a good thing for 
>> the VMS world to have a company with a "vested interest" in this product.
> 
>  From old, increasingly dim and distant recollection and very far from 
> official...   OpenVMS licenses traditionally permitted use of any for 
> OpenVMS releases and patches up to the date of purchase plus the initial 
> warranty period, and any earlier releases.    Using releases older than 
> the processor supported or releases that required other and earlier 
> licenses — the old DECnet patches, for instance — wasn't ever dealt with 
> very well.   This policy wasn't ever enforced in LMF, due to the lack of 
> a software warranty update to the existing license PAK.    This policy 
> may well have changed, or I may well have remembered it wrong.   There 
> have been some comments posted here and elsewhere around having to pay 
> for the intervening support if you're relicensing a system, too.   
> Though I've not seen official notice of that — the practice in at least 
> one old era used to involve a requirement to rebuy the software license 
> to restart support, but that may well have changed.
> 
> The software license management (SLM) site disappeared five or six years 
> ago — that was were the policies and such were documented — and maybe 
> the folks at http://licensing.hp.com/slm/contact might still have that 
> info.    http://g5w0675.atlanta.hp.com/slm/swl/view.slm?page=index was 
> the old SLM site — in addition the policies, that was were the License 
> Unit Requirements LURT tables and other details were published, too — 
> and that site was excluded from the Internet Archive, unfortunately.
> 
> HPE has a few more years of selling Tukwila servers with V8.4 licenses, 
> then it's all VSI.    Hopefully VSI gets this and other related issues 
> sorted.  This and related practices are all badly stuck in the 1990s, 
> unfortunately.
> 
> 

I do believe that some recent posts from VSI people have indicated the 
direction(s) they intend to go with licensing.  Basically, free licensing, and 
mandatory support contract.  Works for me.  As far as media, well, if you got a 
license and support contract, then you should be allowed to get the actual 
software in any manner what-so-ever.  Of course, there is the question of "is it 
the right software?"

And the old axiom, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" ....

And another thing, in the recent survey of people who got the Alpha "field test" 
software, one question asked about the need for "reliance on physical media". 
Perhaps VSI isn't very interested in pressing a bunch of optical disks?