On 21 April 2017 at 15:09, R.S. <[email protected]> wrote:

> Regarding the "call home" method - I DONT LIKE IT!
> Really, that's not good idea to enforce Internet connection just to perform
> such an action. I would agree for HMC to communicate, however I have no idea
> whether it's possible. Can BCPii be enhanced used for such purposse? That
> would be preferrable to use IBM call home site as the hub. ISV's shoudl
> communicate to IBM, instead of customer. Too complex IMHO.
>
> More practical approach: the product periodically or just by demand create
> some token. Admin sends the token using copy-paste and e-mail or webservice.
> The he gets some response (again, numerical token) which should be put into
> the product in order to elongate licence period. I should be required once a
> quarter or less frequently, it should be able to be performed just today,
> because tomorron I start my holiday, etc.

Both the "call home" method and the "send a token" have the same
objection from customers - the content is not transparent. Who knows
if some encrypted string contains a summary of other ISV products that
were found running, number of userids in RACF, etc. etc. info that is
potentially useful for the ISV's sales efforts, and that the customer
would not willingly give out. "Exfiltration" of data, as Snowden and
other recent revelations have popularized. Of course if the token is
very small, well not too much info can be in there. How small is small
enough, though - maybe 64-bits? 128? Ask it another way: would your
national government's TLAs permit this token to leave their
datacentre?

> Last, but not least: I wish I had same way of licensing enforcement for all 
> products.

There was once (early 2000s) an "IBM Licence Manager" that was going
to take care of all this for IBM and ISVs...

Tony H.

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