I once did this with a VSE software product. However, when I created the z/OS version of that product I decided the advantage of the automatic trial period was just not worth the risk in an MVS environment.
There are easy enough ways to determine when something has been installed for a period of time, but the trick is to be able to determine that when the product is completely reinstalled. The current date can be checked against something like the creation date in a library DSCB or a PDS directory entry stat. But, the real problem is that you need to leave some track that will persist beyond the complete removal of the product and a reinstall from scratch. That is a big problem in a secure environment, and if you do find a way it would be still be considered unethical by most people. I don't know what type of product you are considering this for but something else to consider is the competitors for the product. Some product areas see very fierce competition. I also ran into the situation where a competitor downloaded my product and ran it on their system with the automatic trial period. I quickly lost my enthusiasm for that technique. All in all, in my opinion it is just not worth it. Authorization keys are a necessary evil for most ISVs but the tricks you would have to play to automate it and still maintain control are not worth the potential problems. Chuck Arney Arney Computer Systems Web: http://zosdebug.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/arneycomputer -----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of R.S. Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 3:15 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Ever see "automatic" 30-day trials for mainframe software? W dniu 2014-03-26 16:36, Charles Mills pisze: > [...] > Has anyone ever seen mainframe software that automatically "expired" > 30 days after installation? If so, any rough idea how that worked? > (Presumably, not a magic hidden file LOL.) > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
