<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"><HTML><HEAD><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 5.5.2653.12"><TITLE>RE: vrf Re: Vrf Licensing of VEE</TITLE></HEAD><BODY><P><FONT SIZE=2>Hello everyone,</FONT></P><P><FONT SIZE=2>I've been lurking on here watching the discussion and finally couldn't resist throwing my two cents in. My company has purchased every version of HP/Agilent VEE since the 2.X days. We use VEE for data acquisition/analysis on two mobile platforms (old railroad passenger cars), on multiple test machines at our lab, and on my office machine/laptop.</FONT></P><P><FONT SIZE=2>We own six licenses of VEE Pro 6.0. I am the only person at my company who knows how to program in VEE. We occasionally bring in a consultant programmer. When he is here we have three licenses of VEE per programmer. This seems adequate. We do have the development version installed on a few more machines than we have licenses for. Since each of our test systems is unique, doing development and troubleshooting on each is critical. We have by the way also bought several hundred thousand dollars worth of HP/Agilent test hardware/systems over the last 10 years along with all of the VEE licenses.</FONT></P><P><FONT SIZE=2>In looking at the upgrade to 6.1 there are four new features listed. First is support for XP. I have VEE 6.03 installed on XP and so far have not found any incompatibilities, although I haven't done extensive testing with it. Second is MATLAB 6.1 which might have some benefit for certain users. Third is improved ActiveX which sounds like vauge Microsoft talk. The final new "feature" is this new NIC based licensing fiasco. I see no compelling reason here to upgrade.</FONT></P><P><FONT SIZE=2>I have experience with NIC MAC address based licensing for our CAD software. We have five licenses of IBM CADAM using the NIC MAC address for license keys. In the last two years, IS replaced all our computers once and more recently upgraded us from Token Ring to Ethernet. Both of these occurances forced us to go back to IBM and beg for new license keys, and caused a few days of downtime in the process. This is a potential headache I do not want with my test systems too.</FONT></P><P><FONT SIZE=2>There are quite a few bug fixes in 6.1. One I'd love to have is the fix for the trace markers jumping to new locations. I took the time to submit an example of that or two to Agilent. Apparently I will now have to buy the fix if I want it. </FONT></P><P><FONT SIZE=2>As far as my I am concerned, I will not be purchasing any copies of VEE 6.1. I hope Agilent will release another 6.0X patch with some of the bug fixes, although I'm not holding my breath. It seems to me Agilent may be stopping a few true software pirates, but they are alienating a major portion of their legitimate customer base in the process.</FONT></P><P><FONT SIZE=2>I hope Agilent is listening...</FONT></P><P><FONT SIZE=2>Regards</FONT><BR><FONT SIZE=2>Corey Wills</FONT><BR><FONT SIZE=2>BNSF Railway</FONT></P><BR></BODY></HTML>
I liked the response from Jeff Davis (repeated at the end).
That is not as far fetched as you think. Last week my laptop released an
unusual aroma. Electronic developers know it well. When I took it to the
repair shop, the answer was, "It needs to go back to the factory for
repairs." We removed my hard drive and put it into a new chassis.
Everything(!) is different (NIC too) except the software.
My two cents worth...
We went through this hassle twenty years ago when the PC industry was new.
Those of us who lived through this remember all the techniques that were
tried and abandoned as simply too much trouble. Companies that continued
the practice simply lost markets to other companies that stopped the
practice.
There were dongles that were forgotten about when the software's prime user
changed assignments and moved, the replacement who had his own computer and
knew nothing about the dongle and spent days or weeks looking for it.
There were encrypted sectors on a floppy that transferred a "key" to the
hard drive during the installation proccess. Then the hard drive crashed
and you tried to re-install the software on the new drive and found out the
key was missing.
There were activation keys available only from the manufacturer for a price
and only worked once.
Now it is the NIC. New item, same problems.
The essential point is trust. Does Agilent trust its customers or not? I
think we are getting signals now.
Robert Reavis
Warm Springs Computer Works
Fremont, California
______________________________________________________________
> What about this one Mike...
>
> Saturday evening...EMERGENCY troubleshooting session on a High-Rel job
that
> has a MAJOR deadline...Your development machine cooks off for some reason,
> and WILL NOT boot; could be an OS problem, could be a hardware problem, it
> doesn't matter since you cannot get your development machine to boot.
>
> You decide to install VEE on a backup machine just to get you through the
> troubleshooting session.
>
> WRONG !!!
>
> During the installation, you are prompted by VEE that your license ID is
> invalid. You decide AHH HAA! I will swap the NIC's from the unbootable
> machine to the backup machine.
>
>
> WRONG!!!
>
> Your company does not allow its users to have ADMIN rights on the client
> machines, you are shut down until you can get an IT guy to come in and
swap
> the card. You lose valuable development time waiting for the IT guy to
show
> up, IF you can even get one to respond to your emergency pages. Rearrange
> this scenario to happen on a LAPTOP with integrated NIC, and now you
cannot
> even SWAP the NIC's to get you through the emergency troubleshooting
> session.
>
> I know it seems like a stretch, but is it really that far off ? I am not
> trying to hammer on Agilent, I just do not like the idea that they are
> adding this security feature without providing details on it on their
> website ~
>
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