Charles Mills writes:
>Hasn't even IBM gone to
>less and less of a "trust" model? Are not the restrictions on z/OS.e, for
>example, enforced by technology that is somewhat analogous to keys?
Re: z/OS.e, I'd say not. A customer has control over IEASYSxx, subject
(legally) to their license. ("LICENSE=z/OSe" isn't a secret code that only
IBM can issue. :-)) Besides, the last release of z/OS.e is 1.8. Starting
with z/OS 1.9 there are different, still non-key, licensing rules (i.e.
zNALC).
I have to correct something I said earlier. While your product can cut SMF
type 89 records, SCRT may not pick them up. (I'm not 100% sure it will,
anyway, so I'm backing off saying it's so.)
But you can still do reference-based pricing. For example, if you're an
ISV with a DB2 tool, you can charge according to the DB2 MSUs that pop up
in SCRT. Any problems with this approach? It's how IBM charges, and you
can just ask for a "bcc" (blind copy) of the same report IBM gets. If your
customer isn't sending SCRT reports to IBM (isn't VWLC), not a problem: you
can require SCRT even if IBM doesn't.
With respect to distributors and fraud, that's why you ought to consider
providing support and subscription services directly. And why there ought
to be support and subscription services (i.e. active product development).
You can also put into the product installation documentation and even the
installation panels an admonition to "register" with you (the vendor) as
the sole source of "critical updates." (Just an admonition, not a key.)
There's another way to do this: proxy-price to some business metric that
makes sense for your product and forget machine/MIPS entirely. For any
publicly traded company this works quite well in the age of Sarbanes-Oxley.
For example, if your customer is a bank, charge a tiny amount per account.
For a credit card company, charge a tiny fraction of a penny per card
swipe. These business metrics appear in the companies' annual reports,
with high-priced auditors signing off on them, so they must be truthful
under penalty of executive prison sentences. I suppose you could even
price according to something that appears on the customer's tax statement
-- lying to the Internal Revenue Service is a bigger problem for the
customer. Or price according to the company's stock price. Or CEO's total
compensation. Or whatever. As long as it's publicly reported, verifiable,
and there's somebody else that can exact considerable pain if it isn't
correct, it'll probably work.
- - - - -
Timothy Sipples
IBM Consulting Enterprise Software Architect
Specializing in Software Architectures Related to System z
Based in Tokyo, Serving IBM Japan and IBM Asia-Pacific
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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