I have a lot of experience as a mainframe software vendor. I totally understand what you are saying.
The other side of the coin is that some customers abuse software vendors. At my former company, we had several of what we called "the trial from h---." A prospect would run a trial forever, with excuses like "my boss is in a bad mood, I'm not going to bring a license in there for him to sign today." If the salesman after months and months of exasperation threatened to send him a legal letter, he would say "I can tell you if you do that we'll never buy your product." The poor salesman would not know what to do, and the free trial would drag on and on and on. Our average 30-day trial went from about 180 days to 90 days when we added an expiration date, and that was a good thing. Also, when we added checking to our product, an amazing number of customers surfaced who "had no idea that group was running your product on that box." Yes, our licensing worked so that the serial number check was not totally "hard." The product would run on any serial number with a warning. I am fully aware of the "what if we have a disaster at dark oh thirty and are up to our butts in alligators without having to track you down for a key?" issue. Charles -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Imbriale, Donald (Exchange) Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 12:09 PM To: IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU Subject: Re: License keys for ISV products I am not a developer - but please don't do it. Products with built-in license checking are a real PITA for customers. If you insist on doing this checking, make sure you have the ability to provide a universal license code that bypasses CPUid checking; your best customers will appreciate it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
