🚀 go-pugleaf

David Lemson writes
        sears@tree.egr.uh.edu (Paul S. Sears) writes:
            >I like the ability to limit software to specific machines (not to  
a specific  
        
        Did you set it up?  Sure, it's fine once it's running but to set up
        50 of them is quite a bit of work.
        >of limiting software much more than "There are already 4 copies of  
this  
        >software running...." type messages...
        But with mathematica's floating license server, which supposedly
        works now, you should have one copy for each machine anyhow, so you
        should never have anyone see such a message, plus you don't have to
        run mathinfo on each machine.  I think that license servers which
        are tied down to one machine are reasonable.
        
        >Wolfram has done a great job in dealing with us and they usually have  
our  
        >passwords within 24 hours of requesting them (often the same day!).
       
i get the distinct sense from these schemes that people assume that every  
office that uses software has a 7 day a week sysadmin that works during regular  
hours. or that my convienint time to install a program, late afternoon,  
corresponds with regular working hours for a company on the east coast. 

the fact is, once i go to install a program, 24 hours is frequently not an  
option. somebody wants to see that program and use it NOW. every release, every  
update seems to require a new key, machines get moved around, upgraded or sent  
home in a constantly changing office landscape. these kinds of licenses  
actually deter us from looking at or using products because of the hassle  
involved. i want to peek at a particular product, but i can't because it is  
installed on so-and-so's machine because he was doing the review. or because  
they need that software for day to day operations. 

while i was originally impressed with the security afforded by these schemes,  
my disgust with the hassle involved has practically come to a personal boycott.


 
    --
Kristin Dyer					kdyer@nextworld.com
Assistant Editor				501 Second Street
NeXTWORLD Magazine				San Francisco, CA  94107
We always thought 'NeXT' stood for 'Nobody enjoys X-Windows Tedium'.. - Gregory  
H. Anderson 
-- 
Kristin Dyer					kdyer@nextworld.com
Assistant Editor				501 Second Street
NeXTWORLD Magazine				San Francisco, CA  94107