"What people are doing is through special programs and queuing where they can run several users continuously with several background processes that stay active. This is what IBM has frowned upon." ------------- My brain wiring doesn't allow me to separate this scenario from real life either.
None of this "falls under the rules of Piracy ie running one Microsoft Word on multiple PCs". That's spreading FUD and is so far off the point cannot be addressed directly. Look at it this way. I have 500 employees and I pay two full time people to do nothing but run reports for whoever dials their extension and makes a request. These two employees are logged in all day, they remember, manage and distribute the hundreds of requests they get all day. That's all they do. Does your scenario suggest I need 500 licenses rather than two? If not, how does this differ from web services running even from within UV? Is the difference human vs. program? I fully understand the loss of revenue to IBM argument. I'm not going to pay taxes I don't owe either. If I can replace a person with a program, a telephone extension with a web interface, I have saved my company money and have cost IBM nothing I didn't owe before. I'm just more productive. I failed ethics in college. I was failing my second attempt until my Professor gave me a clue. The test questions are supposed to be grey he said, your problem is Dean, you don't think like a criminal. And, I'm still confused today. If I replace a person with a program and a telephone extension with a web interface, do I go to jail or get promoted? What I'm hearing is jail. But my brain isn't wired to understand why. -[d]- On 4/18/05, Tony Gravagno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Until I saw Dean's posting I was also going to just let it go. The trigger > for me was the equating of multi-user license usage to running multiple > copies of software on different systems. Copying software allows more than > one person to execute different functions at exactly the same time. All > DBMS products are engineered to allow us to perform the following > sequential functions: > Accept connection and query > Read state data from cache or disk > Perform operation on all data > Write state data to cache or disk > Respond to user and disconnect > This is the way web servers work and one common way of engineering a > disconnected client/server model. There is no physical way that anyone > process can perform those functions for two users simultaneously, the way > two instances of pirated software does. All users must wait for any user > consuming a license to disconnect before they consume the license in their > own turn. The terms "connect" and "disconnect" may imply logging in or > simply going inactive as someone else consumes the license resource - the > point is that the way MV platforms are engineered, only one user can make > use of the resource at any given moment in time. > > This use of licenses has a long standing legal precedent, here are two > examples: > Modems which came into use in 2nd to 3rd generation systems allowed > one user to connect and then disconnect, followed by another user who did > the same. "Per-seat" licensing, compared to "named user" licensing has > always acknowleged this paradigm. Today, if we choose to allow one user to > consume that license for a period of 2 hours before giving it up, or 200 > milliseconds, that is a matter of design. There are no set standards for > how long a user must consume a license in order to be considered legal, > except where software vendors impose some minimum connect time. Such > impositions are considered bad design and virtually no company takes a > stance on this because it's technically and politically unreasonable. > Software like UniObjects, PDP.NET, mv.NET, ODBC and RPC, are > specifically designed to allow software to connect, process, and disconnect > as described above. These products and technologies, and many others like > them have established a precedent which allows developers to effectively > consume licenses with as short a connect time as possible. I have not > heard of a single legal case in the IT world, not just the MV market, > brought by a DBMS vendor against a VAR/developer for abuse of this common > communications design. I think any company that does so would be > committing political suicide, if it allowed its developer base to go so > long without action, and then all of a sudden claimed that accepted > practices and established connectivity products were now in violation of > their legal terms. > > Unless IBM publicly states their position on this topic, takes a developer > to court, or just sends a polite "please rethink your license consumption" > note to someone, we will not know how liberal they are about their > licensing, regardless of what their license actually says. My guess is > that no DBMS company will take action unless there is blatent abuse. Such > abuse would probably have to involve exploitation of a bug which didn't > enforce licensing policies. I'm also guessing no company would make any > open statements - the "we can sue you if we really want to" ace in the hole > is just enough to keep some people from jumping across that nearly > transparent line between reasonable use and abuse. > > I'd also like to get some real numbers on the table. Some people say you > can get 10 users on a single license. Anyone who has implemented a > multi-user environment knows this isn't the case because, as stated above, > the first user will connect and you'll have 9 people waiting in line > afterward. A real high performance remote transaction might take about > 250ms, plus or minus depending on network bandwidth, which is still only 4 > transactions per second. (Note that's not including common MV operations > like SELECT or EXECUTE.) With 10 users one 1 license you'll have some > users waiting in excess of 2.5 seconds, which is simply unacceptable in > some environments. A more real expectation is 2-4 licenses per 10 users. > In a 100 user shop, that doesn't mean 20 to 40 licenses, it means 25-50 > because you'll still need some ports for telnet administration, etc. OK, > maybe 50 licenses for 100 users is too much, but you can easily see that > now we're negotiating numbers far different from a 1-to-10 ratio. > > Everyone is looking at this situation as an abuse of licenses. I think we > need to look at licensing from a bigger perspective. DBMS companies don't > make money selling to mom and pop shops. I think IBM and other companies > are happy to know about 100 user sites and 1000 user sites, even if they > only consume 30 to 400 seats for those numbers of users. A 30 license > shop, even for 100 users, is much less hassle than 10 systems with 3 users. > Market share is usually quoted in total numbers of users - never in terms > of some number of named users or other more 1-to-1 perspective. So from a > marketing perspective, the more users a VAR can get on a system the better. > I think this market would be much better off if VARs start selling > non-persistent connections to larger shops, rather than a lot of little > telnet/serial/modem licenses to small shops, but that would involve a shift > in mindset that most MV VARs are not willing to make. > > Thanks for the time slice. :) > > Tony > Nebula R&D > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > .com > > > David Jordan david-at-dacono.com.au |U2UG| wrote: > > Hi Dean > > > > What you are doing is not a breach of the license. > > Connect, process, Disconnect and forget is OK. > > > > However if you had persistence in the UvBasic program > > where the past activity of that web user is recorded and > > then used in a future action then you may be crossing the > > line. > > > > What people are doing is through special programs and > > queuing where they can run several users continuously > > with several background processes that stay active. This > > is what IBM has frowned upon. > > > > > > User1 ------- ------- > > Process1 \ / > > User2 ------------ Multiplex 1xU2 License ------------- > > Process2 / \ > > User 3 ------ -------- > > Process3 > > > > Understand that this equates to a loss of revenue to IBM > > and sooner or later one should expect that they will take > > action. > > > > This is not an ethics issue; it falls under the rules of > > Piracy ie running one Microsoft Word on multiple PCs. > > The criminal and civil actions apply to the customer as > > much as they do to the partner that sells the solution, > > so one has to tread very carefully down this path. > > Worldwide IBM, Microsoft and a number of vendors have > > formed a piracy coalition hiring lawyers and that works > > with Governments and law enforcement to attack piracy. > > Large fines and jail sentences have been given to > > suppliers committing piracy and CIOs' have lost jobs and > > CIOs' and Companies have been fined for breaching license > > agreements. Under SOX this is becoming a bigger issue. > > > > One cannot pretend the rules are not there, there should > > be activities to ensure special licensing arrangements > > are in place for 3rd party applications as they are for > > RedBack. > > > > Regards > > > > David Jordan > > ------- > > u2-users mailing list > > [email protected] > > To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ > ------- > u2-users mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ ------- u2-users mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
