On Moving Toward Software Rentals

CowboyRobot writes "ACM Queue has an article about the emergence of a service-oriented model of software delivery, supported by the W3C, IBM, HP, and Microsoft. They already have their acronyms down: WSDL (Web Services Description Language), UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration), and WSFL (Web Services Flow Language). The article primarily covers the three phases of negotiating, ending with actual service delivery."

Comments

Digital medium is NEVER secure

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before the said software gets "pirated" and publishers invokes DMCA?

Re:Digital medium is NEVER secure

[AndroidCat]

The server-side brains of the software reside on the mothership. How are you going to copy it?

Re:Digital medium is NEVER secure

[cbreaker]

What in the hell are you talking about? Not only is this completely off-topic but you're also very ill informed.

*At least* if you're going to post something like this, you'd have the brains to actually read up a little bit on it. Not only are you wrong about Mozilla using "obsolete Netscape 4.x code" (as netscape is based on Mozilla, NOT the other way around) but you're also wrong about IE being the standard for "all web protocols" - no, IE is the standard for "all microsoft-only protocols."

Get your facts straight, dumbshit.

Re:Digital medium is NEVER secure

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, IE really has excellent standards support.
It's support for e.g. the HTML button element (the ONLY element to create proper form buttons) is broken to the point of unusable in IE (it works like described by W3 in Mozilla!).
Protocol support? Do a simply search for serving PDF files to IE (multiple problems if returning PDF in a post request, many other caching problems if from a get). Not to mention those "user-friendly" HTTP error code pages.

Using FireFox/Mozilla revived my interest in Web clients - having to support IE killed it again. /Too-lazy-to-login

Re:Digital medium is NEVER secure

[tambo]

Not only is this completely off-topic but you're also very ill informed.

Fortunately, the same can be stated about the author of this article.

UDDI, DISCO, WSDL, etc. describe web services - which, in fact, have very little to do with a software rental model. Web services are mainly a way for businesses to provide formatted data over a platform-independent HTTP channel. They are also a way to interact with the company, by using its objects, in a secure, object-oriented manner, without a lot of client/server architecture.

This technology will revolutionize business-to-business interaction. It has nothing to do with software rentals, except to the extent that businesses might want to subscribe to information services of other businesses (e.g., up-to-the-second stock tickers.)

I'm in a pretty good position to draw this conclusion: I've spent the past two months preparing for the Microsoft Certified Solution Developer exam on XML web services. So I know what it can and can't do.

Don't get me wrong - the software rental model is horrific, and that battle needs to be fought here and now. But for god's sake, let's pick the right target before unloading on it.

- David Stein

Re:Digital medium is NEVER secure

[Anonymous Coward]

It's support for e.g. the HTML button element

"Its".

Re:Digital medium is NEVER secure

[cbreaker]

"Don't get me wrong - the software rental model is horrific, and that battle needs to be fought here and now. But for god's sake, let's pick the right target before unloading on it."

Damned straight.

I think the average consumer is willing to do a "subscription" on some platforms - MMORPG's require pretty high cost maintenence of the data centers and technical support, Internet access costs money to get it into your house, and cell phones of course require a bit of infrastructure as well. Of course, all these things could be a lot cheaper and still provide plenty of profit, but I digress..

When it comes to total rental however, people just don't like it. I mean, if people liked the idea of not actually owning what they have, all those "Rent-a-center" places would be a lot more popular then the hold-in-the-wall places that they are.

As a general rule people might not be too computer savy but whe the software starts hitting the wallet every month people will look for alternatives.

Re:Digital medium is NEVER secure

[tambo]

I think the average consumer is willing to do a "subscription" on some platforms...

Exactly right. Similarly, consumers are fully willing to pay periodically for cellphones, cable/satellite TV, XM radio, and of course broadband.

The real question is whether the consumer is really getting a service or a solitary product. Is the user getting a flood of new content? Does the offering absolutely require the use of a whole lot of infrastructure? If so, then J6P will happily pony up every month for it.

If, OTOH, we're just getting the privilege of using the same crap that we used last month, then screw it. We just want to buy it once and own it forever.

This may well shape up as an interesting legal battle in 10-15 years. We might need a court ruling or legislation that distinguish products, which must be offered on a fair one-shot price basis, and services, which simply can't be.

- David Stein

"Service Delivery"

[Gothmolly]

will consist of deployment of a crappy too-thick-to-be-thin client, with poor response time, and broken widgets. The vendor will claim that it is due to either 1) client-side misconfigurations, or 2) unanticipated variations in the environment, both of which will be ironed out via a Professional Services contract accompanying the software "delivery". The end result will be the creation of numerous roles at the client's expense to "manage" and "coordinate" the software delivery, frustration at the end-user level, raises and kudos for the middle managers who jumped on the bandwagon, and fat wallets on the part of the shovelware designers.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[bsharitt]

There's no use in fighting it. They've already got acronyms. When the acronyms come out it's all over.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[ScrewMaster]

Yes, I think you pretty much covered everything except the obligatory last two:

n) ???

n+1) Profit!

Re:"Service Delivery"

[iamatlas]

The end result will be the creation of numerous roles at the client's expense to "manage" and "coordinate" the software delivery

So....basically it will create more jobs in the IT sector. If software and implementation were uniformly perfect for all applications and systems, I know that I and many others would be out of a job. That being the case, I for one welcome our new subscribtion-based overlords.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[Gothmolly]

Hardly a worthy comment for someone who claims both to be "Atlas" and who advocates for a website called 'promethean-fire'. Our new subscription-based overlords will be a 'mediocrity' in the true sense of the word. If it's wrong, and bad for business, how can you support it, whether it provides you livelihood or not? Can you not find a job without someone pushing broken products?

Re:"Service Delivery"

[D-Cypell]

Then my money is on Microsoft to dominate this market.

They a proven track record with this strategy.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[fireman sam]

"So....basically it will create more jobs in the IT sector"

Who said they will be local jobs?

Remember when the software industry took off. All those support jobs just appeared. But where are they now?

Re:"Service Delivery"

[awing0]

I don't think it has to be that way. The applications could be installed and run locally, but with unique serial numbers or "cd-keys" that query remote servers for your account info. Pretty much in the same way application activation works now. Application reports four hours of usage, you get billed on your account for it. With longhorn on the way with all its DRM crappiness, companies would feel safer deploying applications in this manner, I'm sure.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[flacco]

will consist of deployment of a crappy too-thick-to-be-thin client, with poor response time, and broken widgets.

or it could be a simple web app with some enhancements/extensions as envisioned by the whatwg, behaving as browser users expect it to behave, designed around internet response times, and thus providing response times that browser users are accustomed to.

currently i'm moving a client from a godforsaken ms-access app that i wrote many years ago to a web-based application that i intend to host on my own hosted virtual server. no more installation issues to deal with, no more relinking tables every time i ship a new version, no more ms-access-on-the-client requirement to deal with... when i have a new version ready i just upload it to the server and we're done.

i *am* looking forward to whatwg-like extensions, though, because the user interface is taking a step backward, from the user's perspective. whatwg should address some of those shortcomings.

The vendor will claim that it is due to either 1) client-side misconfigurations, or 2) unanticipated variations in the environment,

further argument for web applications. but again - must... improve... interface... !

both of which will be ironed out via a Professional Services contract accompanying the software "delivery". The end result will be the creation of numerous roles at the client's expense to "manage" and "coordinate" the software delivery, frustration at the end-user level, raises and kudos for the middle managers who jumped on the bandwagon, and fat wallets on the part of the shovelware designers.

unless a competitor comes along and says "why are you messing around with all that complicated proprietary not-thin-enough client technology for? here is my alternative, which is standards-compliant and requires only a web browser to use." (granted, perhaps a mozilla-based browser, but you'd just be doing them a favor anyway if they're not using one already).

go whatwg, go!

Re:"Service Delivery"

[gcaseye6677]

Considering how easy it is to break Windows XP Activation, I wouldn't bet on this method working for more than 10 minutes without someone finding a way to keep the software running locally without reporting or getting authorization from a server. The end result would be inconvenience and frustration for users that cannot connect to the authentication server with massive piracy continuing unabated. Unless DRM can be built into the hardware all the way down to the BIOS level, security of subscriptionware could not be guaranteed. Based on the outcry when the BIOS DRM system was proposed a couple of years ago, I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[iamatlas]

I probably should have prefaced my comment with ::insert tongue firmly into cheak::

But, as long as we're going to try to remain on topic, let's debate a bit:

The fact that this may require additional on- or off-site support to implement does not neccesarily mean it will be bad for business. Perhaps it will cost x amount more than current solution to implement due to its unweildy, complex, and buggy nature, but maybe it will produce x^2 more productivity and profits, meaning it both creates more IT jobs for people like me, and makes workers more productive. In fact, the product I support and program for does exactly that-- It's a CRM system. It rhymes with FoldMine. It certainly has its issues and implementation problems, but is incredibly successful if getting its users to sell more.

As for the Atlas, well, that's a reference to Atlas Shrugged. I am Atlas, and I shrug off the burden of holding up the world. Try reading the book if you're bored, but wear your tin-foil hat, or some other sort of crap filter, or swallow it with something more than a grain of salt. You'll need to reading anything written by Ayn Rand

Re:"Service Delivery"

[Iggowanna]

OK, all that aside (problems with delivery and execution), there's a few other things that will make the whole idea a dud, and the first of these is open source. Why pay by subscription for something that you can get open source for free? By the time that the whole subscription thing get's it's legs (a couple of years perhaps) OSS will have started to become an acceptable option to the masses.

The second problem is control. Are you willing to give up your private documents, schedules and e-mail to another company? Some are. I'm not. Many others aren't either.

This reminds me of a keynote address (or something of the sort) that Gates gave in the past year where he predicted that end users will not purchase computers in the near future, but rather, they will be given away with subscriptions - you know - like cell phones. It's possible that this will happen to some extent (and serve his need to control content), but there will always be a substantial market that will want the raw goods.

Just like software.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[JavaNerd]

will consist of deployment of a crappy too-thick-to-be-thin client, with poor response time, and broken widgets.

I disagree. This model does not appear to be for word processing or other apps that are best served locally, but for applications that are inherently network based, such as banking or order fulfillment. The main thing in the article that I picked up on that makes this different than software as a service is they have introduced a market place where similar/same services can compete and mechanisms to select different services at runtime.

The main thing that I did not see is a reputation system. I don't think this model can work without some kind of reputation system. Otherwise, what is to stop someone from offering very marginal service (but just good enough to be non-fraudulent) and making a killing by under pricing competition (who offer a much better service but charge more).

Re:"Service Delivery"

[addaon]

Who cares if they're local jobs? The IT sector isn't something outside your front door, it's international. As is the economy.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[fireman sam]

So, when do you fly out to India? Or will you just commute internationally every day.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[icknay]

The problem with buying software is that it puts the vendor in the sad position of adding stupid features and witholding bug-fixes in a hope of getting you to upgrade. Really you just wanted the old version with a few bugfixes. With rental, they can keep a small crew keeping it up to date, and we get to send them $20 a year or whatever to keep it running.

Indeed, customer-annoying moves like changing the file format seem much a feature of the sell-once model. With the rental model, they just want to keep you happy with the software as it is.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[chris_mahan]

yes, but the day that Igor the russian hacker reverse-engineers your authentication server just enought to use luser as username and putin as password, your "rental service" falls apart.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[jrexilius]

I dont think that the only way to deliver software as a service is via SOAP.. My company is doing just that, selling access to software, hardware, and network bandwidth via a browser interface.

Really the cost we are passing on to our clients is actually more hardware and bandwidth as we use all open-source platform and have written all the software ourselves without outside funding.

Now can you say the browser interface sucks?.. well I suppose, but I think its a hell of a lot better then fat-thin client software and a lot better then buying and managing the hardware and software yourself.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[iamskelter]

But do they have a flag?

Re:"Service Delivery"

[jrexilius]

One solution that I helped a friend develop for a very similar problem was to use Flash and its scripting capabilities in conjunction with HTTP POSTs to the real backend.

My site has a flash emulation of a limited *nix command line. http://www.rexiliusgroup.com/

If you click your mouse just about 10 pixels to the right of the command prompt you will get a cursor and you can do some basic commands. It was an ugly and quick hack done more out of irony and fun so dont pick on it too badly.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[raduf]

I happen to have given a lot of thought to the subject because i'm considering renting the software i'm making instead of selling it, and there are a few points I should make:

1. Nobody says the software must be at the service provider and not at the client. Few clientis would allow their confidential data to reside outside their company to name only one good reason.
This doesn't mean the software can't have a web interface, just that this decision is not forced by the services model.

2. Clients already pay for maintenance. What they get now is that this beeing the only money the software vendor gets, he's motivated to do a better job.

The price of the software matters much less to the user then it means to the vendor. What the user wants is to be convinced that this solution solves his problem and he can start to use it easely (weather the client is a person or a big company metters less). What the vendor wants is a chance to prove that to the client and of course to make money in the end.
The price for the software if the software is sold is a bareer in this "partnership", because both user and vendor know that after the money is paid there is little more that can/will be done by either. By renting the software you make official a partnership that should anyway exist and last as long as possible.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[ynohoo]

Mine too - but I dont think there's a market.

It's bad enough when versions of the same software breaks backward compatibilty, but when you loose access to a rented service, you can wave your data goodbye too. I find it hard to credit anyone buying into the subscription model, no matter how much the suppliers like it.

Re:"Service Delivery"

[ivan256]

Who says he's not living there already?

Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[rpbailey1642]

I, for one, am terrified of this. In the first, if you are only renting the software, you do not really own it, so they can basically monitor you, or refuse access to the software if they want. Second, they have to have some way to monitor if the software is working or not, depending on your subscription time, which means either every (SUBSCRIPTION TIME) you'll have to reregister and reenter your code, or they will need to have access to your system (via the network, or in the real world) to reactivate it. Scary.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[slipnslidemaster]

Yes, it's called Microsoft...

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[AresTheImpaler]

I didn't think about the problem of having to monitor if the software is working or not.
Other than that I think these companies seem to be accepting the fact that nobody wants to pay high prices for software that is going to become obsolete in matter of months. At least that is the impression I got. Now that they realize that nobody want to pay, they need to find a better strategy of making money. First of all, subscription might be OK for a lot of non-geeks that do not care about their software not being theirs. They just want software that can help them with what ever they are doing.

Wouldn't a suscription method mean that we are going into the direction of a free software method in which we only pay for support and other related services?

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[NanoGator]

Okay, that's 'the glass is half empty' reaction. What about 'the glass is half full'?

a.) We all know that software promises are iffy at best. When you need to get a job done, and software promises to do it, it really is no guarantee, is it? Demo ware is sometimes helpful, but few companies do it right. (I'd like to nod in Macromedia and Alias's general direction for making their demo ware work right.) Basically, what they want you to do is buy their software and ... well.. you're stuck with it if it doesn't do what you ask.

My company recently ran into this. There's an app called ZBrush used for texturing 3D models. It has some really cool features that make organic modelling and texturing quite pleasant. (You've seen this software's work in the latter 2 of the LotR movies.) Unfortunately, it's a ~$500 app, and they haven't released a demo yet. We ended up getting it after watching a live demo at Siggraph, but man, that was a happy coincidence in timing. If we could have 'rented' the software for a week to evaluate it, we'd have been a lot happier.

b.) Always up to date! Imagine not needing to shell out hundreds of bucks for an upgrade. As long as you're subscribing, you should (in theory, anyway) be using the most up to date software. Done right, this could mean virtually instantaneous security updates, for example. No more people lagging behind with older software perpetuating the problem. No more "I can't open that file!" Etc.

c.) Mobile licenses. More and more companies are trying to prevent people from installing software on multiple machines. Sadly, those of us with laptops and home stations to do work on get bitten. I'll go back to ZBrush's example. They have a locking scheme kind of like Windows'. It id's itself to your hardware, and that's it, that's the only software you can unlock to. Unless I call them up and ask them politely (and I've heard they are quite happy to do this...) to unlock my software, I can only use it on the one station. Doh. If done right, I should just be able to log in to a server and say "I wanna use this", it'll check that nobody else is using it, and allow it to run. Sort of like how ICQ works.

d.) Spend less money. I'll use ZBrush as an example, again. First off, I'm reasonably certain that in order to make the subscription scheme work, it has to be competitive with the cost of buying the software outright. I've heard this a number of times before. (Remember, this is 'the glass half full' comparison, not a prediction) My company is going to reach a point where ZBrush will probably be inactive for a long time. If we could cancel/suspend the subscription then, at the end of a year, we could potentially spend less than we did to buy it a month ago.

Now, I want to reiterate something here. This is simply an optimist's view. Who knows how it'll play out? The worst that'll happen is nobody will want to use it. The best is that we get an experience better than we have today. Works for me.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Anonymous Coward]

As they force the cost of ownership up through "renting" and restrictions, it will drive people towards alternatives (like Open Source perhaps?). At least as long as alternatives are allowed to exist.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[TheGavster]

Some people upgrade every year, but a lot don't. I bought Office 97 6 years ago, and still use it as the office suite on my Windows machines. At $75 for the copy, that's like $1/month.

I also see the horror scenario, "oh crap, my internet connection just went down, my registration runs out in 6 hours, must have this paper done by tomorrow". I put my faith in things that I own that cannot be taken away.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Donny Smith]

>Wouldn't a suscription method mean that we are going into the direction of a free software method in which we only pay for support and other related services?

It would if you think it would.

Joe Looser used to pay $90 for bundled Windows XP OEM Edition before, now he'll pay $10/month with a special 25% discount if he buys 12 months at once.
And IBM won't even allow you to buy less than 6 months of service...

All in all - the same shit in a different package.

Some people will feel great about it, others will frown on it (especially those who used to get pirated client-side software which later becomes server-side only).

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[TheGavster]

How about this scenario: You do a bunch of work for a major client. Right before release, your provider tells you that the version of ZBrush you were using is no longer offered. Oh, by the way, the files generated by the last version won't work with the new one. Sorry 'bout that. Conclusion: you're screwed, you no longer have the option of running the old files on the old version until you've migrated, etc. And don't tell me that software vendors don't break backwards compatibility all the time, either.

By the way, ZBrush now offers a demo: http://pixologic.com/support/contents.html

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[drawfour]

First, you never really owned any software anyway. When you "buy" the software, you really purchase a LICENSE to use it.

That said, there are lots of details that would need to be worked out to get this working properly. For example, I would not expect that EVERY time you use it, you must access a server (this is assuming the software is actually client-side and not a web service running on a server somewhere). Would be quite hard to use Word (for example) on an airplane with no internet access. So I would expect there would be a one-time activation for a period of time (1 month, 6 months, whatever). Anytime you have internet access, it checks for updates and installs them if necessary. Otherwise, until the end of the term is nearing, it never prompts you again. If you choose to extend your license, it indicates to the server and your account/credit card/etc... is charged for the extension. I'm sure an over-the-phone activation scheme can be used for times when no internet access is available.

Other issues are things like prices... What happens if the company decides that $50 for xxx months is not enough, and they need to increase to $65? There needs to be assurances that the rental fee will not increase and can only go down with time, or some such. Nowadays, when you purchase software, you can use it regardless of how many updates there are -- or even if it's no longer supported. Try THAT with software "rentals". So the consumer needs to be protected from pricing schemes like that.

There will also be issues with software running on multiple machines -- how many machines do the rental licenses allow to run concurrently? While I realize that today, this is largely an honor-system (even Windows XP allows you to install it 3 times on different machines until it locks you out and requires a phone call), but if they try to enforce that, it will require internet access to verify you can run the software. And what happens if a machine is running it, but crashes (ya know, the BSOD or lock-up type, or even the network access goes down), and it cannot update the server to indicate it's no longer running. You try to run on another machine that does have network access and it thinks it can't. I'm sure there would be a timeout period where if the server hasn't been refreshed for a period of time, it thinks it's ok to run the other app.

I'm sure there are many more issues. It's not an easy problem.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[ScrewMaster]

Well, I hope that you are correct in that free-market forces will be able to determine what is best. The real question is whether they will even be allowed to. My own feeling (I know, half-empty, doom and gloom) is that the free-market (i.e., the user base) will have little say in the matter. There is so much desire to maximize profit (as in "squeeze water from a rock") among big software companies that I fear the idea of a total end-user lock-in is irresistible. And as broadband penetration becomes more and more significant (apparently this year the number of high-speed installations exceeded the number of dial-ups) this scheme will become even easier to foist upon us.

Personally, I detest the idea of automatic updates. I don't want my software changing until I have reviewed whatever the new version offers and have made a considered decision to upgrade. It would be hell on a corporation if Microsoft decided to "autoupgrade" all of its users and suddenly all the user menus changed. Nobody would be able to do anything and productivity would come to a screeching halt. That's an extreme example, of course, but, honestly, most users would rather the software they have simply work in the manner to which they've become accustomed and not be "upgraded" (i.e., change) all the time forcing yet another learning curve. How many of us really use any more than 1% of all the stuff built into, say, Microsoft Office? And if we did learn everything it can do, by the time we have the latest version will have changed so much that our efforts would have been wasted. Office is so complex and so full of features and is such a continually moving target from the user's perspective that having it mutate even more often would hardly be perceived as an improvement.

And all of this "software as a subscription" business depends entirely upon a reliable Internet (ha) and a software supplier that is able to effectively build and maintain the required network infrastructure. Microsoft has shown, time and time again, that it cannot be trusted to manage a big network: for example, their instant messaging services have had repeated failures on a global scale. I, for one, would not be happy if my company was unable to even send an email because Microsoft's subscription management servers went offline for a while. And that will happen, you know that. And what happens when a company suffers an Internet outage and can't get access to the server-side component of their critical business applications? No, there are definite advantages to maintaining ownership of important software and being as independent as possible of the vendor.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[interiot]

Not that I disagree with your sentiment, but all those apply to Google as well:

• You don't own it
• They can monitor you
• They can refuse access if they want

While software rental increases the amount of potential pain for users, it's still also be possible for a company to do a very good job, both technically and ethically.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Cylix]

This isn't new.... not by a long shot.

It's odd that when someone puts some marketing spin on the practice... it actually gets noticed.

I deal with several software packages designed for POS and accounting. They each have a time out period and a new code must be entered to keep it running.

It's a support + software functionality rolled into one. I don't like it, but the implementations already there.

I am currently writing my own point of sale/accounting software package for video store rentals. I'm not sure if we plan to GPL the project and charge for support later on.

Currently, it's an in house project with the possibility of public release. Right now, our aim are just to get it working.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[NanoGator]

" Right before release, your provider tells you that the version of ZBrush you were using is no longer offered. Oh, by the way, the files generated by the last version won't work with the new one."

That would be one really really stupid company. I can't think of an app that has ever done that. Not saying they don't exist, but Lightwave opens old version LW files, Photoshop opens old .PSD files, Word opens old .DOC files, Zbrush opens old .ZTL files, etc etc etc.

I'm sorry, but whoever modded that up as interesting didn't think through the implications of what you said. That wouldn't ever happen. If, by some strange bizarre circumstance it did, the problem wouldn't be in the subscription model, it'd be in the PHBs running the place. That would be bad news for people even if their software wasn't automatically updated.

I'll give you a better example, though:

When Lightwave 7.0 was released, they broke something MAJOR that involved 3rd party plugins. A month or two later, Newtek had to release 7.0b to patch it. Unfortunately, some of the plugins it broke were VITAL to those trying to do special effects for shows like Voyager. In the case I outlined, this would be disaster, as opposed to stupid annoyance.

"By the way, ZBrush now offers a demo: http://pixologic.com/support/contents.html"

That's for 1.5, not for 2. 2 is the one with all the nifty features we need. Also, the demo for 1.5 locked all the import/export features so it wouldn't have helped us make a decision anyway. We needed to see how it worked with Lightwave models.

Check out this example:

"http://www.reflectionsoldiers.com/refsol/artwork/ willphoenix/scorpion-wip-b.jpg"

This started as a very low detail mesh in Lightwave. I imported it into ZBrush, made the changes that made it look smooth and bumpy as well as the texture images, and then exported the 500k polygon mesh back into LW for rendering into the image you see now. Thanks to ZBrush's crippled demo, we would never have known how that worked. Contrast this with Macromedia. You can go download Flash MX (I forget the cost, but I think it was over $800) that gives you ALL the features that time out after 30 days. Man I wish more companies did this.

In any event, I would have been happy to plunk down a few bucks to 'subscribe' to ZBrush and evaluate it. Though I prefer demos to be free, it's an ok second place option. Sometimes 30 days isn't enough.

Again, I'm being the optimist here, not totally sold on it. The Newtek example I gave made my stomach twist.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[AndroidCat]

even Windows XP allows you to install it 3 times on different machines until it locks you out and requires a phone call

No. When I changed my motherboard (not an XP reinstall), I first had to go to their registration web site and then call. (Routed to India, I think.) This was for a full-up version of XP Pro, not OEM greyware. Possibly someone has used a password generator and already dirtied my serial number, but that's not my problem. I have the feeling that the next time I change enough hardware to make XP panic, it'll be messy.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[xigxag]

First of all, the software companies say you don't "own" the software anyway, just the media it comes on. That's the official story.

Secondly, if you've got antivirus software, you are almost certainly already paying to rent without realizing it. Except as you've already noted, they call it a "subscription," those sneaky bastards. The same with MMORPGs. It'll be coming very soon with Microsoft also. Why do you think they're readying their own antivirus product? They're going to push that along with other upgrade and maintenance services for a fee. Windows without constant updates is worse than useless, and Microsoft will definitely find a way to monetize that as their traditional revenue streams start to dry up. Think MSNDoublePlusGood.

Third, just like mp3 prices, the market is already constrained by the product that's already out there. Almost everyone knows how to get illegal copies of Office97, Photoshop, etc. for free. And let's not forget GNU/Linux. So don't expect end users to pay exorbitant rates for simple word processing. There isn't going to be a situation where you're paying an arm and a leg but you have no alternative.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[halowolf]

Last year I was contracting to IBM when they were doing their whole services push, with their fancy ads and claims that their pictured mythical device that integrates everything application and all their data doesn't exist and your should blah blah blah... Some of us were quite amused by some of the ads and what they were saying. We could never take the WebSphere astronauts seriously :)

Basically from what I remember, you hand over your IT infrastructure to IBM who provide all of your services, like email etc etc on an on demand basis allowing you to rent more computing power when you need it and then slacking off on its use when you don't need it, etc etc. On paper it seemed to make sense. But not for many apparently. But thats what "spin" is for.

They were having a hard time selling it from what I recall. Large companies with their own IT infrastructure were unwilling to just hand it over to a third party and rely on them to manage it in the way they want. Alot of promises but not many success stories to go round. Perhaps things have changed now, but its going to be a hard sell.

I think this model of software use would be more appealing to smaller businesses that don't want to manage their own IT infrastructures because of cost or whatever. But those that have established IT departments may not want to just hand over many critical functions to a third party.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is already the case.

You merely license most software.

From some damn commercial vendors, they even tell you how many (1) machines you're "allowed" to install their software.

The days of owning software are long gone.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Anonymous Coward]

One possible scenario you forgot to mention, is when Micro$hit"Of course when they have no competition" decides to offer their software under a Pay-Per-Use License., that would be more expensive than simply purchasing it. Of course eventually, everything will be in a pay-per-view, pay-per-listen, or pay-per-use format so only the rich will be able to afford anything.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[cyril3]

All that on top of spiders and the dark. Do you ever leave your room.

Seriously, do you think they are going to watch everything each of their clients do and at a whim stop them using the software. Do you seriously think even MS could get away with a contract like that.

There are already plenty of software products which have annual licence costs and which require new keys at licence time. The world hasn't ground to a halt yet.

You must be able to think of some better reasons to fear this than that big brother crap.

Get over ownership. If it's ever been really necessary it's certainly no longer that big a deal. As long as you have use and sufficient control of that use ownership is not a big deal.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[cyril3]

They do that now as you admit. And they do it because everybody is not on the same application level. So isn't that an argument for rental. They would have no incentive to do it if everyone was on the automatic upgrade path with periodic licences.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Anonymous Coward]

What!? you can't buy a web searching program!?

I will fix that, once I finish downloading the Internet...

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[CodeBuster]

why would the company not continue to offer the last stable release of the old version to existing customers who chose to keep the old plan? Sort of like the way cell phone plans work today. Many people are grandfathered in on old cellphone plans that are no longer offered or sold, but as long as they keep renewing their subscription they get to keep their old plan. Companies make mistakes, but they will not usually piss of a customer if they can possibly help it. That would be like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[arminw]

I thought that renting out software is illegal. If it is not, then why isn't Blockbuster et. al. in the software renting business? They could buy X number of copies and rent them multiple times. Of course if the users copied the software these users would be breaking the law the same as when they copy a rented movie or music CD. Rented movies supposedly have a copy protection, but I have heard that has been hacked and programs that allow copying of most anything can be found on the Internet. Blockbuster and Co. of course could not be held liable for what the users do in the privacy of their houses and so they probably would not care either.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[arminw]

So you've come to depend on ZBrush and then for some reason they go out of business or they get sold to someone who finds the program unprofitable and it no loger gets updated at best and perhaps at worst stops working altogether after a certain time. Also, since the program uses a special data format, all the work you have done with it is suddenly inaccessible. You buy a new computer because the old one went up in smoke or became obsolete and then you learn that you cannot install the program there because of some protection. I'd never touch such a program with a ten foot pole if my business depends on it.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[NanoGator]

> You buy a new computer because the old one went up in smoke or became obsolete and then you learn that you cannot install the program there because of some protection.

Actually that's what happened at my studio. Pixologic was quite helpful.

> I'd never touch such a program with a ten foot pole if my business depends on it.

Yes, you would. Food on the table > software principles.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[arminw]

I wish that my FORMER cell phone co. had done that. They wanted to force me to buy a newer more expensive plan *and* a new phone. I politely called upon them to honor my contract with them which still had about a year to go, but they refused. Therefore I cancelled my account and went with another provider. However they are STILL hounding me to pay a $200+ early cancellation fee now, over a year later. I have very politely but firmly told them where to go and use caller ID to ignore the calls of their collection agency! I'm afraid that today there are an increasing number of companies out there that have no qualms alienating their customers. Witness the RIAA and their music customers for example.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[arminw]

...never really owned any software anyway...

That is BS. If I buy anything in a store, including software, it is MINE, no matter what the entirely bogus and illegal, so called EULA says. A purchase of anything, including software, gives the purchaser ownership. If I buy say a radio, the manufacturer thereof cannot force me to listen to certain stations and not to others.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[arminw]

...Windows without constant updates is worse than useless....

That is a major reason why we use Macs around here for everything that doesn't need some special proprietary Windows only program.

We have a 1992 Color Classic that still works quietly as a rather spohisticated phone answering machine and as a programmer for a bunch of X-10 remote controlled lights and other electrical items. The Mac is remotely controlled over the ethernet by other modern computers, one of which is a Win2k box.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[xigxag]

Heh. I'm not a Mac person so my first thought when you said "Color Classic" was the TRS-80 CoCo.

For a second I was really in complete awe of your retro-geek chops.

I'm afraid I'll have to downgrade that to quietly impressed. ;)

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[jrexilius]

Think of it more as a utility. Many things in life that you depend on, you dont own.

My company is like salesforce.com in that it is 100% browser based and you are using it to manage parts of your business, completely different application and market but its still a rental/subscription/usage model.

The one thing I would look for that we built into our system, is control and access of your data. Just like a hosting company you would be dumb to have the only copies of your HTML on their server. Our system doesn't really keep any special data, but what we do, you have complete access to (exports and reports and all that).

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Billly Gates]

My guess is they (the vendors) are looking at subscriptions as parrallel to the telecom industry when cell phones came out.

You have cancellation fee's, minutes, confusing rules, and contracts.

This is a great way to suck money off you. If your reception sucks too bad you keep paying or end up paying a fine and a number change.

Zbrush would likely love to charge your business for a minimal 2 year contract to prevent you from leaving. Or would have you sign a horrible EULA for the rental agreement.

Since you do not own the software you have no fair use rights. This means they can tell you to shove it up your ass.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[bit01]

d.) Spend less money. ...

The pessimist view. ;-) I think you are being overly optimistic. This is all about maximising the vendor company's revenue stream. Unfortunately, with current IP law, IP owners have way too much control and will use that control to, at a minimum, not disadvantage themselves.

I've been on the customer or vendor end of hundreds of annual software support contracts. Almost without exception they were poor value for the customer. The customer would've got better value by paying by the incident. One extreme example was a contract that cost more than a million dollars annually (many seats) and the customer got 3 (!) support tickets/phone calls, none of which solved any significant problems. Not surprisingly they dropped the support contract after that.

In any case, it doesn't necessarily make much sense from an economic point of view to keep on paying indefinitely for an indefinite number of seats for the one-off effort of writing some software. The market will hopefully deal with it assuming IP law lets it happen. Free (as in libre) software should do well.

---

It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be one really really stupid company.

Not at all, those features are now only available in the "supra" version, which is only $11/month more. If you still need those features, I'm afraid you'll have to upgrade your subscription. Otherwise we can't afford to continue providing them at the lower price.

I can't think of an app that has ever done that.

Well, you're not renting yet, are you?

Right now backwards compatibility is critical. If it doesn't work with your old stuff, you stop upgrading and use the old version. You save money AND it still works.

With a service model, if the new version doesn't work with the old stuff, what will you do? If you're lucky some competitor will have something that can use it, but good luck with the way IP laws are going. You can't use the old version, because your license will expire if you don't upgrade.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[GORby_]

I have the feeling that the next time I change enough hardware to make XP panic, it'll be messy.

Don't worry about that too much... I have activated my copy of windows XP Pro (full version too) at least 7 times or so. I just happen to change computers frequently, and move the license from one PC to the next. The people whom I sell the PC (or parts) mostly just get a Windows XP Home license with it or it gets sold without OS.

After the first few installs, I had to call them to be able to activate. Recently I upgraded again (XP-M 2600+ running cool & quiet in my desktop) and did a fresh install, but it activated over the internet without a problem. Probably they just allow you to activate it over the internet a certain number of times within a certain timespan...

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[AndroidCat]

One install in March, and the re-reg in June when I had to call and type in that loong sequence.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck did this moron get to 4, Interesting? Anyone who put 15 seconds of thought into this issue would have arrived at the same conclusion. Fucking mods.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[tepples]

First of all, the software companies say you don't "own" the software anyway, just the media it comes on.

However, if you own "the media it comes on", then you are an "owner of a copy of a computer program" under U.S. copyright law, with specific rights that come in 17 USC 117.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who knows how it'll play out? The worst that'll happen is nobody will want to use it. The best is that we get an experience better than we have today. Works for me."

You have said you're coming from an optimist direction, and that's ok with me. But I guess I figure I should point out that the worst that'll happen is not that 'nobody will want to use it', but rather that everyone will adopt it only to find out later that they have been screwed.

By screwed I mean: That legacy projects and software can not be retained for niche activity b/c either you stop paying and loose access completely, or you keep paying a full-price monthly fee for that old dbase program that's running in payrole from 7 years ago. Without ownership your ability to get off the upgrade cycle is gone. A software project will no longer ever be 'done' and removed from the equation b/c sofware services will continue to cost money. Further (if I know software and the companies that make it) every service you 'subscribe to' will suffer feature bloat as every software company you do business with will attempt to expande it's role in your shop to domination.

As things like DRM, the NEW! Windows Media Player, Microsoft BOB, updated Clippy integration, whatever else the suits decide I'll like comes along the ability for me personally to say "No thanks, I'll just use the old one," is valuable to me. Will it remain valuable to business?

Your last paragraph indicates that if it sucks nobody will buy it - they'll just keep what they have. When you buy your software that's a guarantee you have: don't like the new stuff? Don't buy it! Just use what you have! When you rent software you loose that option. You can come in one day to find your software has spontaneously gotten crappier and you can't go back. Or that the service you like is being discontinued in favor of the newer, more expensive service that might not have your favorite feature anyway. You can't continue to use the old one because you don't own it. It's not in your building. You don't have control - you never did.

Where would I be if I had 'subscribed' to Speedball 2 back in the day? Would I be playing speedball? No, the Speedball 2 contracts were all phased out 8 years ago. The current product that fills that role is NBA AllStar JAM 2004. In fact, we even have a few people who are subscribed to NBA.* based on the Speedball 2 contract because they set up automatic credit card deductions and then forgot about them. Where would the company that I work for be if they had 'subscribed' to Win95? We'd be still paying expenses for changes to machines that work fine for what we want them to do. Machines we haven't spent any money on in a long ass time would instead have been an ongoing budget drain, and further would have required thoughtspace in every budget instead of being in the 'no problem' colum.

Holy shit this post has become gigantic. I gotta stop. So I'll restate my point: Optimistically? Software subscription could be super rad. It could be neat. There are all sorts of cool things that could happen with it.
But the worst that could happen is far from 'nobody buys it.' Don't underestimate the worst case scenario.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Anonymous Coward]

"My own feeling (I know, half-empty, doom and gloom) is that the free-market (i.e., the user base) will have little say in the matter. There is so much desire to maximize profit (as in "squeeze water from a rock") among big software companies that I fear the idea of a total end-user lock-in is irresistible. And as broadband penetration becomes more and more significant (apparently this year the number of high-speed installations exceeded the number of dial-ups) this scheme will become even easier to foist upon us."

F/OSS-Man will save us!

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[Anonymous Coward]

b.) Always up to date! Imagine not needing to shell out hundreds of bucks for an upgrade. As long as you're subscribing, you should (in theory, anyway) be using the most up to date software. Done right, this could mean virtually instantaneous security updates, for example. No more people lagging behind with older software perpetuating the problem. No more "I can't open that file!" Etc.

Dream on. We already see this with SuSe. As a Suse X.y owner you cannot simple update your distribution with the online update (it only pushes critical security updates, but for instance not the released-yesterday kernel version).

You either need to buy their new version, or manually compile stuff. Now think about closed software. (where you cant just compile in the new version). You need to rely on the service provider to give you the new version, and they will _not_ do this without you forking over some money.

Tels

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[CodeBuster]

I have very politely but firmly told them where to go and use caller ID to ignore the calls of their collection agency!

This is not a very smart strategy for the following reason: The cell phone company is a major corporation and the credit reporting agencies will believe whatever they tell them and when they tell them that you didn't pay then the credit reporting agency will ding your credit rating. At the very least you should contact the credit reporting services and file an amendment with a copy of the contract and your side of the story. However, those cellphone contracts have some fairly cleverly worded clauses such as "we reserve the right to change the agreement at any time without notifying you and you agree to be bound by any changes" which basically says in so many words that they can F*** you over anytime they feel like it and get away with it. The best thing to do would be to pay them the $200, file a complaint with the FCC, post your side of the story with the credit reporting agencies and then never do business with them (the cellphone company in question) again. You may have the moral high ground but the legal system isn't always fair to the little guy and it would be really unfortunate to be turned down later on for a car or home loan because of this, or get a higher interest rate, which means you pay more in the long run anyway. I reiterate that the best thing to do now is to pay them and then file official complaints, but dont let them wreck your credit over something like this.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[arminw]

...food on the table....

It is very rare that there is only ONE software program in existence that will do a given job. For most things computers can do there many pieces of software to choose from. On the odd chance that I have to do something with a computer that no one else has thought of and written a program for, then in that case I'd write that program I need and give it away for free to the world.

Re:Rentals? As in, no ownership?

[NanoGator]

"It is very rare that there is only ONE software program in existence that will do a given job."

In all honesty, and I promise you I'm not saying this to 'win', in this case, ZBrush is the only app for this job.

Nice idea, but...

[bblazer]

This sounds like a great idea. There have been times when I needed a piece of software just for a one or two time use, and the only things out there for my particular need had high license fees. However, what bothers me is that MS is involved with it. I am worried that they will make the technology OS specific, and finally get a foothold in the internet 'standards' (read MS standards) that they have been trying to do for so long.

Re:Nice idea, but...

[Donny Smith]

You do realize that they have the potential to satisfy your requirements at a resonable cost despite being Microsoft?
Then why worry if they'll make it OS or whatever specific?

Besides, I'm sure their stuff will be cheaper than IBM's.
Also - if they don't join (with proprietary technology or not) prices will be higher and choices will be less.

Re:Nice idea, but...

[Overzeetop]

Oh, I'm sorry, yo missed the point about minimums, didn't you. It'll be just like seat licensing - $1000 for the first copy, $2000 for ten copies. Your first day will be 90% of the basic subscription, but you can extend it for 364 more days for just 10% more.

Licensing for Service Delivery.

[ron_ivi]

This seems an interesting hole in the GPL - use GPL'd technology, but only deliver thing parts of the client to the users; and keep all your GPL-tech-using-yet-proprietary stuff on your server. Since you never "distribute" the server side code, seems it is your to do whatever you want with it.

Is there a need for a new Creative Commons license type that says "if you server services using this technology, I need to share the source"?

I think no existing license covers that need very well today.

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Anonymous Coward]

that says "if you server services using this technology, I need to share the source"?

Of course you meant "if you serve services using the software, you need to share the source".

Could this be done on the client side - kinda like the GPL prevents linking to non-Free Softare libraries, could we have a license that applies on the client saying "this client may only interact with servers using Free Software"?

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Anonymous Coward]

could we have a license that applies on the client saying "this client may only interact with servers using Free Software"?

Not enough.

A corporation could still write its server under the GPL, but still _never_ release the code because technically it never got distributed anywher. I think a new GPLish license type is needed to cover server code.

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you can figure out how to make copyright apply to client-server transactions, the only way to prevent this sort of thing would be to use a EULA. (which would probably be not certified as open source)

All this stuff is nothing new. The GPL didn't collapse with Sun/DCE RPC or with CORBA. It won't collapse with Web Services.

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[drsmithy]

This seems an interesting hole in the GPL - use GPL'd technology, but only deliver thing parts of the client to the users; and keep all your GPL-tech-using-yet-proprietary stuff on your server. Since you never "distribute" the server side code, seems it is your to do whatever you want with it.

Is there a need for a new Creative Commons license type that says "if you server services using this technology, I need to share the source"?

Why don't you just leave out all the verbal pussyfooting around, cut to the chase and say what you mean:

"If you want to try and sell GPLed stuff, you have to give it away as well."

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Why couldn't you just tweak the GPL so that everywhere it says "distribute a binary" it says "distribute a binary or services"?

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you just leave out all the verbal pussyfooting around, cut to the chase and say what you mean:

"If you want to try and sell GPLed stuff, you have to give it away as well."

You misunderstand the GPL. It's far stronger than that:

"If you want to try and sell GPLed stuff, you have to give it and the source code that created it away as well."

And what the parent proposed is stronger still:

"If you want to try and sell or server services with [this-hypothetical-license]ed stuff, you have to give it and the source code that created it away as well."

AFAIK, there's no such license that covers this case yet.

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course no license covers that, it can't. All a license can do is grant you the rights normally reserved for copyright holders, and spell out any conditions that may apply to being granted those rights. Use is not covered by copyright, everyone can freely use it wether the copyright holder likes it or not. They just can't modify it or redistribute it.

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. Of course I can cover usage in a license.

For example, certain software is licensed for academic use only. Others to run on an single CPU only.

Other software is licensed for use only on a single PC (damn Microsoft Windows).

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, as I said, copyright law doesn't apply to services, so you'd have a EULA.

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[jrexilius]

I think you are correct, and although my company is open-sourcing any modifications we make to the open-source packages we use, there is other code that we are not (more because it is so implementation specific and would be too much work to make a good package out of it). And since we are not distributing any software, just selling browser-based access/use to it, we dont think we are in violation to the GPL.

As a business, I do have to walk a line between giving away my work that was the big investment of my company and using community developed software in good faith and giving back to the system that helped me. Karma isn't just for slashdot.

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Shirotae]

A corporation could still write its server under the GPL, but still _never_ release the code because technically it never got distributed anywher. I think a new GPLish license type is needed to cover server code.

The proposed new GPLish license would presumably require that if you run a GPL(ish)ed web server then all the pages it delivers come under the GPL(ish) license, as do all the scripts that generated them. If you use something like PHP under that kind of license you have to give away the sources that generate the pages. If you use CGI, you have to give away your scripts. If the pages are generated from a database, you have to give away the database engine at least, but the spirit of the proposed license seems to require that you give away your database too.

Presumable this GPLish license would mean that if you run your web server on a Linux host, then it counts as a GPL(ish)ed server, so the "give everything away" provisions apply.

Letting someone else use an application that runs on a GPL(ish)ed OS could also be considered to be delivering a service, so presumably your application has to be GPL(ish)ed too.

On the whole, I think I prefer GPL as it is.

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Anonymous Coward]

So this would probably also be the end of binary-only Linux kernel modules?

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Anonymous Coward]

About 3 years ago I was working as a programmer at a software company. At the time I was working on adapting a hybrid Xvnc/winvnc+terminal server solution to deliver full applications on either platform to clients in a manner that would be seamless to the user... i.e., they just click on an icon and the program comes up in windows or linux irrespective of what computer the program is running on or what OS it is running... in fact, they could have both windows and linux programs running together.

In this setup, we never distribute the program, they are merely using it through the server. they never receive a binary copy and thus a provision of the source copy is not needed either.

With the exception of one program, the modified vnc client, there was no distributed code whatsoever. and w/o the documentation of the protocol and how the other side handles the configuration, there would be no way for people to reverse engineer the server setup (a farm of mixed windows/linux machines w/ people able to run code on more than one simultaneously!)... to them, it would all appear to be just one machine, so at best, they could add in the specs to the server VNC to make it work for one client.

Also, GPL only requires to make source available to those who purchase a binary or to whom u distribute the binary to. The people that we were selling to had no use for the code and that would be the last thing on their mind to request. In essence, the entire project remains proprietary. No one other that the sublicensee of the combined code knows about it because the project is not publisiced.

This whole has been known about for some time and exploited by some people. People who want to make use of it like this probably aren't very interested in making it known that this exists, but are quick to make use of it. Plus, unless you are a larger company this kind of "abuse" would never get noticed. But as this is a case where the license does allow for this form of use. Short of harrassment you can't really do anything about it.

Re:Licensing for Service Delivery.

[Rich0]

However, the FSF does not agree with any of these restrictions.

They would agree that copyright can be used to prevent instalation on multiple computers (beyond what would be considered fair use). However, the FSF does not belive that you can use copyright to restrict software to be used on a single CPU, or for academic use only.

Now, many EULAs contain these restrictions, but the FSF does not believe they are enforcable - or at least that they shouldn't be. So, you'll never see the FSF putting use restrictions in a license.

Note that the GPL specifically states that you don't have to accept the GPL to use GPL'ed software - just to copy or distribute it.

WIM

[bobblebob]

>They already have their acronyms down: WSDL (Web >Services Description Language), UDDI (Universal >Description, Discovery, and Integration), and WSFL >(Web Services Flow Language). And WIM Who Ivited Microsort

Re:WIM

[Geburah]

And WIM Who Ivited Microsort

When I saw the word "Microsort" I all of a sudden got this mental picture of tiny yellow guys with antennas, about the size of thimbles, called "Booquards" working relentlessly under strict watch from the bigger general Booquards. They needed to hurry and sort various nick nacks. The intergalactic demand for nick nacks is quite high these days, and the distribution of them is very important. Though, Baglork, the first yellow booquard I imagined, is sad because he has to work on his birthday. All he wants to do is go home and enjoy a nice bowl of squishy-o's and watch his favorite TV show. Thats his favorite thing to do. Poor little guy.

What could possibly be offered?

[MustEatYemen]

Everything I want for computer use is pretty much existing in a state I already own (Office, Visual C), or is being developed by a more open/donaiton system (Firefox,Thunderbird,Filezilla,Sunbird). There's a limited amount of applications I would LIKE, and none that I NEED, that don't really exist yet. So why in hell would I pay a monthly service fee for word? When I believe Word 97 was just fine, and now instead prefer OpenOffice more(majority of the time I just use notepad.exe).

The only avenue I see that could possibly get away with rental systems is the game industry, but only if they're rental prices severally undercut store prices. (Halflife 2?). That's the only area where there's consitently a new killer app that is needed. Not exactly IBM's home turf. Mircosoft on the other hand...

Bah, screw the entire thing, just disrupte w/ Bittorrents and Coral, and ask for donations.

Re:What could possibly be offered?

[rokzy]

agreed.

their attitude seems "we can't make better software so lets just fuck about with pricing schemes".

seems to be inspired by the mobile phone ringtone market - pieces of crap served at $1+ a pop to people who don't know better.

Re:What could possibly be offered?

[HawkingMattress]

Yes but for very specialized apps that you only use once in a while it could make a lot of sense.
For example i'm in a very little (4 ppl) software company, we only have to modelize new apps at most twice a year, but the soft costs huge bucks for us.
If we could just rent the soft two weeks when we're starting a new project instead of buying it and maybe have to rebuy it the year after because some needed features are added, it would be worth it.

Re:What could possibly be offered?

[Al Dimond]

That's exactly why companies would like to offer software in a subscription-based manner. They can force you to pay for either nothing or for updates you don't need. They're not doing it because it'll be better for you.

Re:What could possibly be offered?

[MustEatYemen]

I can see where this niche would be a desire. Maybe there would be times I'd want to test out some software before buying, or needed to scale up seats at the office quickly etc. This isn't the market they're looking at though, because in all honestly, the development of these software packages is rather expensive, so I think they're looking for sometihng bigger then niche markets. Converly I could be off my rocker, and this isn't a niche, but a glaring hole in software. IMO, I still wouldn't bother. I prefer "ownership" over leaseing/renting. God knows I have enough theorecital legal problems with my CD collection, don't want those issues migrated to my software collection.

Re:What could possibly be offered?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything I want for computer use is pretty much existing in a state I already own

I guess so. If you don't want it, why would anyone else? Oh wait a fscking minute, how about the billions spent on ERM from SAP, Oracle, Siebel, etc. who are all moving towards this model? The posts on Slashdot can be so myopic. Get a clue

Re:What could possibly be offered?

[bit01]

You will need it because the customers you are dealing with will be using it and the documents they are supplying you are Integrity Assured (tm) i.e. DRM'ed to the hilt by M$ and others so that you can only access the documents with the latest version of M$ software. After all, it's M$' document format and they can do what they like with it. You must be a DMCA criminal if you want to use any software other than M$' to access the documents.

---

It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.

Re:What could possibly be offered?

[MustEatYemen]

I'll simply reject the documents. Tell the sender that I do not accept documents in that format. As it is right now, I generally ignore PDF files.

more info on ACM

[Anonymous Coward]

Read what they are saying:

The Service-Oriented Model

Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me.

Re:Boycott this color scheme!

[FosterKanig]

And this one.

Application Service Provider

[usefool]

Wasn't it not long ago we have this ASP, which gave publishers a new way to sell and distribute software and software services? How is this ASP compared to the new Software Rentals scheme?

Re:Application Service Provider

[chiph]

Software Rentals was tried in the late 80's, but got squashed by the BSA and Microsoft, who were more interested in sales and upgrades, and were very concerned about piracy (think about all the people who rent a DVD from Blockbuster, rip their own copy, and return it never to rent it again). I think Beagle Brothers was one of the resellers that tried it... could be wrong (someone correct me if they know).

The authors talk convincingly about the price negotiation that might occur at the time of the service being delivered -- This implies that SOA will become part of a hyper-capitalistic market economy, where every time you want to spell-check your document, you would pay a different price, due to supply & demand on the supplier's systems. Or perhaps their CEO is sitting at his desk, clicking the "raise price" button so he can make his beach house payment.. ;-)

I'm not so convinced about their arguments -- one big assumption they make is that one service provider is much like any other, and that the API to each service is identical (i.e. no cost to changing service providers). I seriously doubt this will happen in practice ... each supplier will probably have their own, incompatible API. Maybe over the long term a standard may arise (upon which it truly becomes a commodity), but that would require an 800-lb gorilla to set a standard.

Think about what this requires in the way of authentication & billing: For every provider you may want to use, you have to establish some credentials with them so they know how to charge you. It'd have to be a combination of something like Liberty Alliance or MS-Passport, combined with a micropayments scheme. This billing system would require it's own API, that both the user and the service supplier would have to support. Uh-oh, things just doubled in complexity!

I'm not saying such a thing won't come about -- I've been in the industry too long to discount such things -- but I think it's highly unlikely given the obstacles.

Chip H.

Disclaimer: I work at an ASP. Profitable and cash-flow positive!

Sounds good for most games.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not terrified; but would be pleased if software rental were a common option. 90% of computer games I tire of after about 2 days. If the cost was reasonable, I'd be happy to rent most of them; and actually prefer that over buying them.

cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we rent using our Tivo?

Re:Boycott this color scheme!

[UserGoogol]

But not this one.

Re:Boycott this color scheme!

[FosterKanig]

and this one

What is it 2001 all over again?

[Asprin]

I thought the market already rejected this idea!

Oh well, even if they didn't, I can't see this approach finding any more than a niche market because for commodity software, the price has to be low enough to outweigh the benefits of ownership.

Nobody is going to pay $150/year to rent MS Office Pro when OpenOffice is free to own. $30/year, maybe, but then MS has to make a decision about whether that price is too low to be worthwhile. Actually, at $30/year *I* have to wonder if it's worth it, but then I can't stand the last few version of office because of all the annoying "non-features" I have to turn off to get actual work done.

Re:What is it 2001 all over again?

[MrRTFM]

Hard to really tell how people will react.

If you had asked me in 1999 if I would *pay* to read, say Slashdot for example I would have laughed my head off - but here I am in 2004 about to get my 2nd subscription.

It's funny how things turn out sometimes - who knows maybe we'll be paying a flat monthly fee to get all the ringtones, wallpapers and horrible colour schemes we want.

Re:What is it 2001 all over again?

[Ian.Waring]

The reasons ASPs failed before was that the economics depended on selling the same software infrastructure to multiple customers - when in reality everyone wanted it customised to their own individual needs. That's why most ASP conferences featured ASPs selling heavily to one another, with few or no customers present - they sussed it straight away. It took a market correction to finally rinse most of the vendors out. Ian W.

Re:What is it 2001 all over again?

[Anonymous Coward]

Down, boy. Slashdot quite often carries old news, but it's rare that it's quite as dated as this.

This probably isn't about Word, or anything similar (although you'd be hard-pressed to tell from the original article, which was clearly written by someone who knows nothing about the subject - pretty much the definition of a journalist). It's probably not even about server-oriented net stuff like Evercrack, either (although I can think of niche problems of the online games market where parts of these technologies might be useful under the covers, but that's by the by).

What this is currently mostly about is business applications - the sorts of things that companies need. Your business needs a Widget management system? I provide one, and you can use it (for a fee, of course). How? XML over the internet. The WSDL describing it is here.

Of course, you could do what you've always done, and pay a raft of programmers and sysprogs to write and run your own system, instead - your call. I reckon I've got a compelling business case for you, though.

Just in case anyone here thought otherwise - this isn't remotely new or news; it's lots of bits of technology that have been out there and evolving for several years now (anyone taking an RSS feed is exploiting something of the sort, for example). It's going to carry on evolving, because it has useful business potential. Nor has the market remotely rejected it - whether it's to make their product offerings available to the world, or to knit their own applications together, companies want aspects of this stuff.

Re:What is it 2001 all over again?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't doubt that there are people that would rent MS Office. There is one company that has a yearly release schedule for major versions that I have upgraded every year since 1995. I do this because the new features are worth the upgrade price and because I support the company (they're less evil than google). I'd imagine almost all their customers do the same too.

The company I work for has a subscription to MSDN and it would be very likely that we would subscribe to any latest and greatest dev software (maybe not things like source control but for things like compilers and IDEs, yes, as long as they're actively being developed).

The renting model is better for certain software. The first company I mentioned is almost like a renting model (except the software is fully functional and there is no requirement to upgrade) and they release bug fixes and other minor updates 1-6 times a month. Renting almost naturally lends itself to that kind of release schedule.

OS X almost has that kind of release schedule except without the more timely minor updates.

Web applications anyone?

[SlashdotMeNow]

I don't know what the hell this article is all about. Software as a service EXISTS ALREADY and has been around for years! Ever heard of web-applications? Like, say WEB MAIL?!?!

Thin client = web browser.

We run a subscription-based software service, over the web. As the net gets faster, latency goes down, and web-apps will become more and more like desktop apps. Sure desktop apps will always be a bit faster, but for many applications an HTML interface works just fine.

All these new acronyms are just a waste of time. The only thing it will achieve is a PhD for whoever the idiot is that worked on those specs.

Re:Web applications anyone?

[ImaLamer]

I was thinking the same thing.

Yahoo! for example allows you to rent games via their "Games on Demand" service... 3 bucks gets a game for 3 days, completely streamed to your PC.

But this is the same reason Microsoft killed Netscape, they were afraid that Netscape would become the interface for all new applications. I've already talked about this before on Slashdot, so I really don't feel like going into it all over again.

Simply: Microsoft is powerful because they provide the user-land. That is kernel+gui AFAIK. Netscape, with Java, plug-ins and javascript (Netscape's invention, not Sun's) was poised to provide what the next generation wanted: apps on demand.

Windows is dominant because it allows for middleware to be used without much work. If everything was going to open-standards based then all one would need was the browser (once that made it to your platform) and the OS (kernel) would be irrelevant.

It wasn't about the actual browser, it was about the future of applications. Openoffice.org should be a site which loads office applications into you browser, not a place to download it. If Microsoft wouldn't have started the browser war it would already be here.

Re:Web applications anyone?

[arminw]

Having a subscription model for network related work, such as e-mail and browsing may come. For most other application, even privately networked ones, the dependence on a still rather fragile Internet infrastructure will not work for critical business applications. The Internet today is nowhere near as reliable as the old fashioned wired telephone which is not affected by DOS attacks and assorted malware running on millions of unprotected computers.

All this rental talk reminds me of the old mainframe days, when it went down, everybody just sat around doing absolutly nothing until it came back up. With a relatively independent PC on each desk, users can still do useful stuff, such as composing e-mails for later sending or working on a report with a word processor for example. Then, when the net or server finally works again, regular work can resume also.

Out of Ideas

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a solution for the software provider, not a solution for the software consumer.

Without new products to produce, software companies are looking for ways to maintain revenue streams. The problem is, good software development companies do not always make quality service providers.

Dequeue ACM Queue

[Jeffrey Baker]

The ACM Queue is an interesting publication. Every month they turn it over to a vendor to promote their latest scheme. It's a brilliant advertising vehicle, where the magazine *is* the advertisement. For example, an article in the May issue on the benefits of TCP offload engines written by iReady, makers of TCP offload engines. In the same issue, an article on why text mining is replacing information retrieval, from a company who would like to sell you text mining software. And that's just me flipping through the first issue I could find laying about my home. I think everything between the covers of the ACM Queue should be ignored.

Re:Dequeue ACM Queue

[Queue Editor]

Jeffrey --

Hi, editor of Queue here. I hope my reply get's modded up :)

I must say that I strongly disagree with your characterization of Queue. We *emphatically* disallow any product pitching whatsoever -- in fact, it's a requirement (as stated on our authors FAQ) that articles focus on *problems* not solutions (i.e. technologies, not products). You cite two articles, and I think you're analysis of them is unfair.

First off, we always invite technologists to write our articles, not journalists, not marketers. Why? Because we feel technologists are the only ones who can credibly speak to other technologists -- and can specifically rise above the marketing fray we believe is all-too-common in technology publishing. The TCP/IP Offload and the search/IT articles you mention are both written by experts in their fields. Surprise, they also work for companies that match their area of expertise. You don't want us to get a hard-drive expert to talk about C++ buffer overruns do you?

Second, as readers will see in both articles (and I of course invite any and all scrutiny) neither of the articles you mention promote specific products. And, where they discuss any given approach to a problem, they also point out shortcomings with those approaches, and problems left to be solved. I hardly call this self-serving editorial (pointing out problems w/you own area of technology doesn't tend to sell more products!)

Lastly, all of our articles are reviewed, not by advertisers or even hordes of editors -- but by other technologists. If an article smacks of cheerleading, it's rejected. And believe me, we reject plenty. In fact, you should also know that the vast majority of are articles are *solicited* by Queue from authors, and not the other way around.

I hope you'll take another look at Queue - we think it's *more* objective than any other technology publication out there!

Edward Grossman, Editor, Queue

Re:Dequeue ACM Queue

[Jeffrey Baker]

Hi Edward,

I'd mod you up if that was possible ;) Anyway I'll keep the conversation here on Slashdot.

I must admit that although I continue to receive ACM Queue issues, my opinion of Queue was largely formed by Volume 1, Issue 1. They say you never get a second chance at a first impression. Queue's first impression was pretty bad.

The authors are from the usual suspects: IBM, Microsoft, and Sun. I realize these are huge organizations with large staffs and bottomless research budgets, but these three organizations are massively over-represented in the mainstream publications. They also have a habit of shilling for their employers, which gets old after a few decades. If I wanted to read about why Microsoft thinks .NET web services are the next big thing, I could just as easily pick up InfoWorld or read C|Net.

Speaking of shilling, let's take a look at vol. 1, issue 1, article 1, sentence 1. Web services are emerging as the dominant application on the Internet. How did that one squeak by the editorial board? The assertion is demonstrably false, as e-mail, news, and entertainment combine to form almost all internet use, even in business. Voice-over-IP is picking up steam, and RSS has recently added to the functionality of web journalism, but web services remain in the primordial ooze. They certainly aren't the "dominant application" and probably will never be.

The subtle advertising continues. For example, MapPoint.Net provides maps and location services is an example and This document can be used by program development tools, such as Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET is another. Yeah, we know Visual Studio .NET is a development tool, thanks for working that in. That sort of thing tips the author's hand as a corporate promoter, even if he doesn't conciously realize it.

Another example I see in the Queue and in virtually all other mainstream publications is the tendency of corporate researchers to refer to existing, perfectly servicable software as "legacy systems." The subtle derision is meant to gently remind the user that anything he already owns should be thought of in the past tense, and anything the software industry is now offering should be considered superior. My Bridge market data feed from Reuters is a legacy system, but an XML/.Net/WSDL/HTTP service consisting of a subset of Bridge's functionality heralds the dawn of an era of happiness and light. And this sort of thing slides past the Queue's editorial board in every issue.

I'll try to keep an open mind when I next get Queue, but presently every time I see it my advertising-defense system goes to Defcon Zero. I hope you can be more stern with your contributors in the future, to help trim out their sponsored bias.

Re:Dequeue ACM Queue

[ivan256]

Do you work in the software industry? Like actualy pushing a desk at a small company trying to get a product out the door? Let me tell you, marketing departments love to find an editor like you. I've hear them trot out all the things you've just said as ways to exploit what the editor and readers think is an honest publication. Let me give you examples of what they tell us at monthy meetings:

First off, we always invite technologists to write our articles, not journalists, not marketers.

"We gain credibility by having an engineer credited for the article even though it's been filtered through marketing before publication."

Second, as readers will see in both articles (and I of course invite any and all scrutiny) neither of the articles you mention promote specific products.

"It doesn't matter that we couldn't mention our product. The goal is to establish ourselves as leaders in the field. Customers will have no problem finding our product once they're already thinking of us in a positive manner. Besides, we want the customer to think they found the solution, and didn't have it sold to them by an advertisement."

And, where they discuss any given approach to a problem, they also point out shortcomings with those approaches, and problems left to be solved. I hardly call this self-serving editorial (pointing out problems w/you own area of technology doesn't tend to sell more products!)

"Pointing out limitations and unsloved problems establishes us as thought leaders in the field and convinces CTOs that we understand the space we're selling in."

I'm sure your intentions are good, but at least from the perspective of Marketing VPs of these companies you're publishing articles from, you're getting played.

Re:Dequeue ACM Queue

[Queue Editor]

Jeffrey,

Thanks for your thoughtful flame-free, reply. It's nice to know these types of civil conversations can take place on /., even though I suspect no one will read us at this level down the thread. Alas.

Anyway, I wholly concede our first issue was awful. And we blew it with a host of readers -- you're right, you only get one first impression. Beleive it or not, I actually started here at Queue as the editor with the 3rd issue, and I like to think we're a whole lot better since then.

One thing to note, *all* of our articles are reviewed by technologists for accuracy and for hype-free-ness. I wager none of our competitors (Dr. Dobbs, SD Times, App Dev Trends) can boast of that. Our board is not just a list of names on the masthead, we all meet every month. They choose the topics, they choose the authors -- oh, and a reviewer and author generally can't be from the same company (e.g. if the author is from company X writes a piece, at least some of the reviewers have to work elsewhere than company x). And yes, some of the stringent rules we have in place are as a result of the blunder of issue 1 -- even though our hearts were in the right place w/that issue, some junk slipped through. Perhaps we're not perfect yet, but I'd say we're the most un-biased pub out there (other than /. of course!).

The whole point of Queue (which is run by a non-profit, btw) was to finally have there be a magazine that was actually credible and not infused with ad $. We don't have to make big $$ to be a success, we just have to pay the bills.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but the proof is in the pudding. I hope you'll give us another chance, but if you're turned off by us, I'll hang my head and go. If you'd like me to point to some real great examples of what we do (like an article from a researcher at Intel on how chip design is kinda screwed, and the whole focus on Mhz is now a big problem) I can (but don't want to overpromote my own pub here).

Thanks again Jeffrey! Feel free to contact me off-line: edgrossman ANDTHENTHEATSIGN acm ANDTHENTHEDOT org.

Edward

Re:Dequeue ACM Queue

[Queue Editor]

Ivan --

I'm not that naïve. I've been in publishing a while, I know when I'm being played.

Also, we don't speak to marketing people at companies and ask them to find us an author. We go directly to authors we want to write, and ask them. Marketing departments usually aren't so excited when they find out they're getting some back-door PR, and that the piece isn't even about their company or their product.

And because most technologists rightly mistrust people like me (editors) we have the articles reviewed by other technologists - yep, similar to a journal - just to make sure people like me aren't getting the wool pulled over their eyes.

Why would we create such an odd magazine? Because we're a non-profit, with no secret agenda. ACM is just here to educate technologists, not make piles of $$.

I hope that helps clarify.

Edward

Software architecture term, not business model

[boatboy]

SOA refers to a method of software architecture that is en vouge- not just a sneaky business model as the post suggests. I'm sure some businesses will jump on the SOA bandwagon for the idea of subscriber-based income, but those that do so for that reason alone will fail.

Web Services, WSDL, etc., all parts of implementing SOA, are essentially ways to provide software services via some network transport (typically HTTP). This makes sense for alot of things. For example, integrating inventory systems in real time. In days gone by, Company A would provide some random way for Company B to access it's inventory/price sheet. Text files, spreadsheets, EDI, etc. All SOA does is apply a machine-readable contract to the process. It says "this server will answer requests that look like ABC with data that looks like XYZ." WSDL, Web Services, etc. are all just about defining that "contract" to cover things like security, data types, etc.

Ironically, this allows for more diversity in the actual implementations. It doesn't matter if your service is provided on a $20,000 HP/W2K3 box running IIS or a $200 Linux box running Apache- as long as it provides a description of it's service, others can consume it- again using whatever language they choose. There are already implementations for most of these standards for Java, PHP, Perl, .NET, C++, and many other languages.

So, put up the tin foil, this isn't a massive conspiracy to get you to pay each time you open your "word processor service." It's just a better way to provide data services where they make sense.

Re:Software architecture term, not business model

[Citizen of Earth]

All SOA does is apply a machine-readable contract to the process. It says "this server will answer requests that look like ABC with data that looks like XYZ." WSDL, Web Services, etc. are all just about defining that "contract" to cover things like security, data types, etc.

I don't see a great deal of utility in spelling out the syntax of an interface, unless one cares to solve the Halting Problem. The syntax of an interface is perfectly meaningless without also describing the semantics of the interface, which is mathematically impossible. It would be much better and more compact to have a canonical global system for identifying interfaces, like "some_authority:interface_type_identifier:version" . Anything more is just intellectual masturbation and a pointless waste of time and hype.

Um...I thought that according to the EULA...

[Anonymous Coward]

...I don't actually "own" my copy of Windows anyway, even though I paid for it?

Isn't this whole "You don't actually own the software you just paid for" thing was old news?

Re:Um...I thought that according to the EULA...

[base3]

Even giving that that EULA's a binding contract, you have a perpetual right to use that version of Windows. This is what software companies want to see go away. Product activation was the first step in that direction, and "web services" and ASPs are the next.

Re:Um...I thought that according to the EULA...

[IANAAC]

I think as long as you have an underlying operating system such as Windows (or any other OS, for that matter) you'll never have solely a "web services" environment. Granted, Microsoft could pull their development environment from the general population, but I think that'd be unwise, considering the talent that's out there writing third party apps - which very often fill a need Microsoft can't. Couple that with the myriad of hardware out there (printers, scanners... anything attached to the PC) and I just can't see it ever working.

Necessity IS the mother of invention. Take something away that's already useful, and someone will come along and build a better one (Linux, anywone?)

Ah yes! Finally!

[st0rmshad0w]

I for one am all over this, please please please let the operational state of my crappy ISP's routers determine whether or not I can get any work done!

"Sorry boss, I can't get that report to you cuz some part of the internet's down."

Re:Ah yes! Finally!

[gcaseye6677]

This brings up an interesting point. What if Microsoft, or some other large vendor of commonly used software, went to the subscription model and someone DDOS'd the authentication servers (kind of like what happend to WindowsUpdate)? How much money would they and their clients lose as a result of everyone being locked out of their software? This is too much of a single point of failure for people to be comfortable with.

Re:Ah yes! Finally!

[AndroidCat]

What if they forgot to renew the registration on the authentication server domain? (Of course, that could never happen... ;)

Re:Ah yes! Finally!

[st0rmshad0w]

LOL! sign me up! Boy do I smell "class action lawsuit" just written all over this baby!

What is difference from software subscriptions?

[Shivetya]

Package anyway you want it comes down to my not owning something I paid for.

Re:What is difference from software subscriptions?

[0racle]

I guess you don't rent movies either. Its the same thing, except you pay a monthly/yearly fee to access the software instead of a one time, to watch the movie for a few days. Rentals exist in just about every industry, why is it such a bad thing when it comes to software.

Paying Microsoft..

[artlu]

I think I would definitely pay microsoft $0.10 for every time I used M$ Word. Similar to website micropayment systems, I think that big company's as well as startups may benefit from per use charges. I know of many stock analysis sites that do something similar. ie: charge you $5 for each analysis you download, or $5 buys you 50 reloads of the site.

Re:Paying Microsoft..

[base3]

You'd pay $100, plus 10c everytime you used it. Take a look at the model used for MMORPGs--this is how software rental would work. People who think infrequent users will save money in a rental scheme are deluded.

Re:Paying Microsoft..

[Frogbert]

That wouldn't work anyway, I could start word up and pay my 10cents and suspend to ram for months at a time. Now thats good value!

More likely you'd pay a monthly subscription and then pay the 10 cents on top of that. I have a better idea though. How about I give them the finger *flips bird* and use Open Office.

Re:Paying Microsoft..

[Anonymous Coward]

Great ! I tell you what I'll do, I'll install an app for you that works just as well as Word, and I'll only charge you 5 cents a time to use it. It's called openOffice. Let me know when you want me to install it, and I'll give you my bank details.

Re:Paying Microsoft..

[Anonymous Coward]

I know of many stock analysis sites

You're not fooling anybody, scammer. Your tone suggests that you're recommending an independent stock analysis site, when in fact the site's owned by you. A whois on gshares.net gives the following:

Domain Name.......... gshares.net
Creation Date........ 2004-08-22
Registration Date.... 2004-08-22
Expiry Date.......... 2005-08-22
Organisation Name.... Anthony Klatch
Organisation Address. 422 St. Rte. 93
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. Sugarloaf
Organisation Address. 18249
Organisation Address. PA
Organisation Address. UNITED STATES

Admin Name........... Anthony Klatch
Admin Address........ 422 St. Rte. 93
Admin Address........
Admin Address........ Sugarloaf
Admin Address........ 18249
Admin Address........ PA
Admin Address........ UNITED STATES
Admin Email.......... ajklatch@groupshares.com
Admin Phone.......... +1.5705943028

That's right. The same Anthony Klatch who ownes artlu.net and groupshares.com. Oh, and abbreviating groupshares to gshares so you can catch some of the buzz of gmail is uber lame.

How about reading my own files after cancelling??

[Anonymous Coward]

There is this issue of proprietary formats, that only gets more serious now. OK you can keep your files, but how to read your .doc v9 document if Word v9 is only available on subscription, and you don't have a subscription?

Or what about you create a document, then switch to a totally different vendor (or stop using that very software) and a year or two later you want to read it again. Then you have to buy subscription only to read your own work??

Sure it can have some advantages, but without at least a freely downloadable reader for your own data it won't take off.

Wouter.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

[Mr_Tulip]

I have a hard time swallowing the marketing spin about the customer benefits of this service-oriented approach to software sales. This model is simply a steady revenue stream for software vendors, who will then no longer have to justify to people the advantages of upgrading to the latest version of their software - they simply switch off the software if discontinue payments. As a software developer, I admit this is a deal is fantastic, there's basically no downside, just an upside. As a customer, I much prefer the service oriented approach of the commercial open-source establishment - get the software free, and pay for training and support. Vertical market software developers have been coming up with these schemes for years. There's simply no way a vertical market software developer can survice if they sell software only, as their customer base is much narrower than off-the-shelf software.

I do not get it.

[angel'o'sphere]

What has UDDI, WSDL and WSFL to do with renting of software?
No I did not RTFA ....
The poster of the story should have made his story better to get me to RTFA ...
WSDL ^= CORBA IDL for XML RPC aka SOAP
UDDI ^= universal directory and discovery service, aka a phonebook or DNS for SOAP
WSFL ^= web sergvice flow language aka process or work flow definition for web services or web based applications

That all is TECHNIQUE,
renting is a BUSINESS MODEL.

Most of the poster to this article seem not to see that difference.

angel'o'sphere

Re:I do not get it.

[Pfhreakaz0id]

agreed. That's exactly what I thought the gov't agency I used to contract for was heading towards the same thing to unify there diverse development houses. It had nothing to do with renting software.

It's interesting that there is a new class of products (both hardware and software) emerging over this "service oriented architecture". For instance what if you are handling all your data interchange via SOAP and have to have certain credentials to access certain rows of data? In other words, the app functions exactly the same, but certain users get to see more records?

Well, you can put that in the app.. but if you have a unversal single sign on system implemented and your web services/soap layer is integrated and sending the authentication anyway, there are sofwtare "routers" for SOAP that will just say "oh, this guy doesn't get THESE rows" and strip them out. REally, really, slick,. Or you set up a rule "oh, this SOAP message destination is the DMZ box so it's the public web site, and, by definition, all data of this class (i.e., with this xml/soap attribute) is private, so strip this data"

The final stage of intellectual property law?

[ShatteredDream]

The first step for the corporate elite in the 1870s-1930s was to try to remove the idea from the public consciousness that natural law is a legitimate basis for our legal system. Then it began to push for a steady expansion of intellectual property law into previously unacceptable domains. Originally patents were very hard to get, you had to produce something truly unique, now you can patent business models!

This is all part of a general push away from an ownership society to a corporatist renter society. Capitalism is not to blame here, fascism is, because it is capitalist doctrine that is directly at odds with copyright holders. Capitalism gave us the concept of a government protecting everyone's property rights and not regulating most aspects of the economy to ensure that no class of business had an advantage over another. It was fascism that gave birth to the idea of controlling the economy to "protect industry."

The software rental model is intended to be the final blow to the idea that customers should have a property right in software. Pseudo-capitalists can come out all they like about how "choice" is what really matters, but choice is utterly irrelevent in every respect when basic property rights are not an option anymore. When no one can own their software in any way, to any degree, the difference between competitors becomes inherently pathetic and trite, just like the major parties in 2000 and 2004.

So what happens? Software companies use patents to protect their business model where copyright law isn't enough, by going after upstarts offering an ownership-friendly model.

But what many geeks and nerds won't get out of this, is that this battle has been raging for not a few decades but for about 144, the first battle being the American Civil War. The public schools frequently gloss over three very curious facts about the Civil War, because that would make Abraham Lincoln look like the most fascist stooge in American history:

• The south seceded over the tariff, even Karl Marx said that the tariff, not slavery, was the issue.
• The founders of the CSA, when you read a bit of their writings, were rabidly anti-corporation by the standards of their day, and despised the system of "internal development" which was basically corporate welfare that was fueled by the tariff.
• Over 600,000 Americans, by today's population about 4,200,000-5,000,000 died in a war to protect the rights of corporations. Kinda hard to argue it was to protect slaves, and not corporations, seeing as how it came hot on the heels of the dred scott ruling.

Now does it become clearer, when you consider the almost 1 and a half century history of this fight, why the federal government really is a government of the people, by the people and for the corporations? Look at the push for things like UCITA, the goal is to essentially in the long run whittle down and destroy the state contract laws and nationalize them, so that the states, the governments much closer to you and your wishes, and thus further from corporate control than the feds, cannot protect you from the monied interests.

There never has been a conspiracy, because the elite has always had the audacity to operate in the open. For the last several decades, they have unabashedly eschewed any pretense of being Adam Smith-style capitalists and their economic model draws upon a more sophisticated, and moderately liberal version of Mussolini's fascist doctrines. What do you think, "protecting and advancing American economic interests" really means? Adam Smith would call it that vile system of Mercantilism which was an influence on socialism and at odds with laisez faire capitalism.

People have asked me why I vote libertarian, it is because they are capitalists. The party was born and bred from an ideological pedigree concerned with the minimization of the elite's power and influence and the preservation of an ownership society

Re:The final stage of intellectual property law?

[jb.hl.com]

You deserve a medal.

Re:The final stage of intellectual property law?

[Anonymous Coward]

And here I always thought that the civil war was the result of a whole slew of social, economic, and political issues (including tariffs) that eventually reached a boiling point (as, in fact, almost every history book teaches--if yours said it was just about slavery you might want to have a word with your school officials).

Thanks for clearing up the fact that it was actually all due to one single, easily identifiable cause! You should let the historians know, so they can stop making the foolish assumption that history is complex, and instead look for the one simple reason for each major historical event.

Re:The final stage of intellectual property law?

[the-build-chicken]

You deserve a medal

I can rent him one if you like?

Re:The final stage of intellectual property law?

[Anonymous Coward]

The south seceded over the tariff

The south seceded over power. The tariff was just the final straw. Slavery became important because Lincoln took advantage of the war to push the issue.

The founders of the CSA, when you read a bit of their writings, were rabidly anti-corporation by the standards of their day, and despised the system of "internal development" which was basically corporate welfare that was fueled by the tariff.

Of course they were, the economy in the south was based on individual plantation owners and their property. In the north, by contrast, all the wealth belonged to corporations. There's not really any difference though, both were in favor of the rich and powerful becoming more rich and powerful.

Over 600,000 Americans, by today's population about 4,200,000-5,000,000 died in a war to protect the rights of corporations.

iirc, wasn't the tariff repealed after the war? How could the war have been about the tariff if the tariff did not survive the war despite winning it? It was about power. Strong or weak central government. People like us deciding the law, or people not like us.

Re:The final stage of intellectual property law?

[swb]

Some random comments:

The Marxists I know generally agree that slavery came to an end because of economics, not because of any good-natured social goal by the Union. Another issue not mentioned was the expansion of slavery -- it was often economically unpopular in the north because it meant vast plantations, not homesteads for individuals crowded out of the limited agricultural land of the Northeast.

I think it's a bit of a strech to call this corporatism -- some might argue it's highly populist to support restricting slavery to gain the support of what was essentially the American worker/farmer.

Slave owners favored slavery and the plantation economic system because it preserved a "natural" social order -- an American aristocracy. Capitalism was far less respectful of aristocratic social orders, and often undermined them.

Renting bug software

[cgenman]

I've found that in one particular area, bug tracking software which needs to be shared across many people, it makes sense for small development companies to go with 3rd party solutions on a month-to-month basis. It's a lot like webhosting in that respects, though unlike webhosting it can be terminated at any time.

Software rentals probably make the most sense for project-duration needs, especially when some form of remote hosting is involved.

But can we still pirate it?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's all we want to know...

Bring it

[Anonymous Coward]

This will simply encourage people to realize the insanity of proprietary software and move to open source solutions.

You should be paying for service for a product, not for rental of a product.

IMO this concept is not new; the music industry regards music listeners in the same manner. Perhaps the computer industry is simply "maturing." I see it moving naturally to where the RIAA is right now (Ha, can you see MS suing pirates for using their software when this technology comes out? I sure can).

Another great thing is this will basically eliminate easy pirating. So MS won't get a free ride among those who can't pay the $200 or whatever it will be for longhorn. Those people will be forced to move towards OSS, due to simple economics.

Re:Bring it

[AndroidCat]

You should be paying for service for a product, not for rental of a product.

They are talking about a service model. (The FA never uses the word rental.)

Uninstall?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I "rent it", does that mean it will completely 100% uninstall from my system?

I might like it

[Anonymous Coward]

It would show incompetency on the other end much more quickly.

Not that I'd use it.

Re:How about reading my own files after cancelling

[starrsoft]

*sigh*

Please take off the tin foil hat; it is causing brain wave interference.

"There is this issue of proprietary formats, that only gets more serious now. OK you can keep your files, but how to read your .doc v9 document if Word v9 is only available on subscription, and you don't have a subscription?"

Do you think that this new model will automatically kill Open Source? You'll "read your .doc v9" with Open Office.

"without at least a freely downloadable reader for your own data it won't take off"

What's to say that they won't create a free viewer? They have one with the owned software model already. With the rented software model it would be even easier: go to a website to open your document; nothing to download.

Article is unrelated to software as a service

[YU Nicks NE Way]

I was really puzzled by the three acronyms used in the summary. WSDL, UDDI, and WSFL are related to web services, not software rentals. They refer to the protocol negotiation, server discovery, and work flow handling steps in a contract negotiation, respectively. WSFL, in particular, is of no use whatsoever in the software rental model.

Someday, maybe one of the editors will read the submissions before they post them? I'm paying for their services by accepting their ads -- keep this up, and I'm blocking the ads here.

Re:Article is unrelated to software as a service

[Anonymous Coward]

I can give you a good example of when WSFL will be used in the software service market. Imagine a system that handles post trade reconcilliation for the stock market. The brokers, fund managers and custodians (banks) all participate in a service that handles the money. They all put their information into the system and it reconciles the stocks vs the money paid and messages the counterparties that everything is good (or not good). (Stock trades are like bets, no one trusts the other party so the custodian holds onto the stocks from the one party and the money from the other to make sure that everything is correct (and takes a cut).

Right now this work is done using file transfers, message queuing, proprietary interfaces such as fix or swift and faxing (believe it). WSFL becomes another way to put your info into the service and get it back out. Everything becomes a producer or consumer of XML and interfacing different financial systems just becomes a message transfer exercise.

You don't own the software now.

[cbreaker]

You don't own it now - if you did, you could do whatever you wanted with it; modify it, sell it to someone else, etc.

The only thing this will do is "expire" your software rendering it unusable after a time - which is the part that I think really sucks ass.

Re:You don't own the software now.

[arminw]

I specifically check for this sort of restriction and just do not buy such software. If everybody did this, such crap would soon cease to be offered. For most software it is possible to find one that fulfills the function without such artificial restrictions. Also, there is usually some hacker who figured out a way to disable such retrictions if the software is popular or unreasonably expensive. Such activation restrictions have never stopped the wholsale "piracy" that is rampant in many other countries.

We have a lot of software on our computers, but not ONE that ever expires.

Wow, I'm Impressed

[finkployd]

Slashdot just ran a story to the effect of "SOAP exists" complete with brand "new acronyms" that are several years old.

Finkployd

This won't work, until...

[benjamindees]

software companies are buying up or being bought out by internet service providers. Until that happens, the goals of each industry are at odds.

It is now in the best interests of ISPs to support OSS. Currently, Open Source has massive bandwidth requirements and ISPs stand as the only real barrier to access to free software. It is better for them to support OSS, through mirroring/etc, than to support software subscriptions, which have equal bandwidth requirements yet also take some proceeds from the consumer that could instead be going to the ISPs.

When consolidation starts to happen, though, the combined companies will be able to build-out network infrastructure as an investment in future software 'services' income.

Fundametal Flaw in Software Service/Rental

[JGski]

The fundamental flaw in the software service/rental model is that it is being rammed down the throats of software consumers by software producers, which might have a snowball's chance iff such vendors have absolute (i.e. monopoly) market power. None truly do; not even Microsoft can say that.

The problem is service/rental is that you become beholden to the service, thus you incur a hidden cost due to risk because you could run the risk of losing access to your own data or processes if you can't make the monthly payments. In the non-rental mode, s/w to control your data and processes become sunk cost at worst with ready substitution of the status quo in lieu of new purchases (expenses). There is no compensation for this added cost for the user in the rental model, while the producer is gaining a cashflow series that was originally a single transction - software rental == higher NPV for the seller and lower NPV for the buyer, making it a simple and audacious market power grab.

Rightly, buyers will expect some compensation (I've yet to hear a single argument s/w rentals that really holds water) to justify switching. Otherwise you can expect the creation of non-rental substitutes (Open Source?) or the creation of black markets.

JG

Re:How about reading my own files after cancelling

[base3]

Except reverse engineering the ".doc v9" format will be a DMCA violation, because doing so will require circumventing Microsoft's document DRM. Producing an alternative to Word will be a criminal offense in the U.S.--even if it can be done without access to the Palladium keys in your PC.

renting a possibility

[spyware scams_suck]

As a software developer, I admit this is a deal is fantastic, there's basically no downside, just an upside. As a customer, I much prefer the service oriented approach of the commercial open-source establishment - get the software free, and pay for training and support.

Vertical companies' clients are still going to need to service those clients even if the clients choose to rent so companies will get paid rent fees + service fees. For the customers, it would be more expensive, but they can afford to just buy "to own" the software for full price.

For people who buy off-the-shelf software, this is great. There isn't that many softwares that i can't live without except my browser. The first time, i may pick a software that has the newest features like Microsoft Office but later on after a few months discover other software out there that's better like Open Office, so it actually sounds better for me to RENT in the beginning with MS Word.

Open free softwares will still be out there, so they're not affected. There are still a lot of amateur programmers or programmers who want to try something out and put it out there free for people to try.

Let's face it, people will only rent or pay to "own" only if the software is any good.

Sounds familiar

[HangingChad]

How long have we been hearing software as a service has been coming? Web services were going to revolutionize the web and everything was going to be subscription.

And now it's closer than ever. Riiight. The only company I've seen make a success of it is SalesForce.com. Siebel made noise with IBM about a year ago with a plan to offer hosted service...haven't heard anything more about that, either.

Part of the problem might be people really don't want to rent software. I think a certain segment of the market will find it to be an advantage, like the CRM market. But many will not, especially smaller companies.

There's also a trust issue to deal with. You can see how many people qued up to give MSFT their credit card numbers with Passport, how many are going to trust MSFT with all their client data?

Re:Sounds familiar

[josepha48]

Actually web services are kinda cool. WSDL + Java == really raelly easy. Well maybe not that easy, but Java's abilioty to do RMI makes WSDL and Java as easy as making function calls.

Anyway, my company is now moving towards We Services. I can see this becomimg more popular as time goes on to. Web Services will make sharing data easier.

In our case we have an application that has a database. Currently our clients direct populate our database. This leads to problems because NONE of the necessary edit checks are done when that data is entered into the system. It could be a week it could be 6 months before this data corruption is uncovered. When dealing with financial data that causes major problems. Especially if your GL is out of balance.

In comes are new web services. They allow our clients to enter in data using our predefined Web service API ( using WSDL ). Then they get the edit checks from the API. I can write the web services in any language I choose ( or management chose -> JAVA ), and they can use whatever language they want to talk to my web service. The clients still get to enter data, but only now it gets checked correctly ( I hope ) before the transactions geet committed.

Re:Boycott this color scheme!

[hunterx11]

Can't you at least try to use some form of redirect or something? I mean, being a troll is bad enough, but you're a lazy troll. In the immortal words of Lao Tzu:

YUO FAIL IT!!1

Consider the audience...

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that this *is* Slashdot. The fact that soap exists is probably (much needed) news to many of the readers...

i know

[nate nice]

How about I rent your software instead of paying one price for it once and owning it. This way I get to pay for it over and over, like an apartment and never get equity in it! Sounds great for me, you got me suckerd!

Here's an acronym for the customers:

[Anonymous Coward]

SOL.

That's what you'll be the first time you *really need* a rent-an-app, only to find out that your internet connection is down, or the licensing server is down, or any other link in the chain between you and the software.

Not to nitpick but...

[Phil John]

...when you shell over your hard earned money for a copy of Windows or Office, once they've taken your money and given you the box you don't actually "own" the software, you have just purchased a license to use it (which may be revoked). You have also paid for the installation media, which is yours, however, the software upon it isn't, it remains the property of (in this case) Microsoft.

Re:Not to nitpick but...

[Generalisimo Zang]

So they claim. Are there any court cases which support the conditions spelled out in these draconian EULAs, or are these just ideas that the software manufactures would "like" to be true?

Re:Not to nitpick but...

[Billly Gates]

No its not.

The EULA is not a legally binding document since no notary is there and because of the fact that you never signed anything.

No one has proved you are only owning a copy of the product that is licensed yet in court.

MS likes you to think this but the law is not on there side.

However corporate licenses due require a legal document and the more rights you have over the cheaper MS will sell you a copy of Windows or Office.

Now you know why one version of Windows is alot more expensive than a OEM or business version.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

>And don't tell me that software vendors don't break backwards compatibility all the time, either.

Examples, please?

It's secure enough

[lucifer_666]

The digital medium is secure enough that the Irdeto 2 and NDS statillite & cable TV digital encryption systems have not been hacked yet.

As opposed to the earlier versions, which were hacked within months of their release.

So it goes to show that if you can get decent encryption into your digital system, and afford to get decryption equipment to your customers, you can keep one step ahead of the hackers.

Unfortunatly.

Google for high blood pressure.

[Anonymous Coward]

"So, put up the tin foil, this isn't a massive conspiracy to get you to pay each time you open your "word processor service." It's just a better way to provide data services where they make sense."

Bingo! Someone in this place actually has a brain. There was an "Ask Slashdot" were Google and Amazon's API were given as examples. Praised actually. Now here we have an article that most didn't read (although the summary was read), and everyone's going all hyper-paranoid. Like I said before, and will say again. You all are your own worst enemies. All an enemy has to do is say BOO! and you all keel over from hypertension.

Re:Software architecture SOA - SO?

[Anonymous Coward]

What comes after SOA?

SOL?

SOP?

Re:Paying Microsoft: $0.10 * 0 == ??

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I would definitely pay microsoft $0.10 for every time I used M$ Word.

Me too. Heh.

In fact, I'd be willing to pay them $100000.00 for every time I use MSWorm at home.

An easier hole in the GPL

[metamatic]

There's an easier way to bypass the GPL. You release the code, but make it rely on data files which are proprietary, copyrighted, and trademarked.

This is already done by everyone from id Software to the Mozilla project.

Re:An easier hole in the GPL

[squidinkcalligraphy]

And how, exactly would you keep them proprietary once anyone else has access to the code?

You are completely free to write your own levels for and GPL'ed game engine.

Repeat after me, kiddies: Free speech, not free beer. It _is_ possible to make money from GPL'd software.

Re:An easier hole in the GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Say a company is selling opensourced software. Once the first customer gets the GPLed code, it is completely legal for the customer to distribute the binaries and code on his own website. It _is_ possible to make money off GPL'd software but that isn't realistic now is it?

Re:An easier hole in the GPL

[metamatic]

The point of the GPL is to enable people to improve and share the software. They can't do that if it relies on data they can't improve and share.

Imagine if Linux was under the GPL, but all the man pages were proprietary and couldn't be changed or copied. How free would it be then?

Re:An easier hole in the GPL

[LilMikey]

Eh? I wasn't under the impression that id was supposed to release their game engines under the GPL? Just because it runs on Linux doesn't mean it must GPLed. So it's not really a hole when it didn't have to be licensed that way in the first place. This is just another example of a commercial piece of software on Linux.

I also don't really see how Mozilla is a bad GPL citizen. There are scores of derivative projects and the rendering engine can be used by anybody. How are they 'bypassing the GPL?'

I think what a lot of people are worried about are people using GPLed code in a web-services type of setting where the executable isn't distributed or run by the client but the client still recieves the benefit of the end result. Since no binary is distributed no source is distributed and GPLed code is locked up in a proprietary application.

Re:An easier hole in the GPL

[IncohereD]

Eh? I wasn't under the impression that id was supposed to release their game engines under the GPL? Just because it runs on Linux doesn't mean it must GPLed

They've been releasing all their engines as GPL five years after their original release. This is how Tenebrae Quake happened, for instance. But they don't release the maps/graphics/data files.

Rent as in...

[JustOK]

beer? Or rent as in apartment?

Pros and cons, plus a showstopper...

[darnok]

I can see pros and cons to this.

On the one hand, I don't want to not "own" something I buy. Yes, I know about software licences etc., but until they're tested in court, I don't believe that I can be bound by a contract that:
- I don't sign
- is only presented to me after I've paid my money at the shop, gone home, unpacked the box, inserted the CD and started "setup.exe" or whatever
- seems to present me with no benefits for my requested compliance with a huge bunch of legalese that is beyond the scope for a non-legal person to understand. A contract is *not* a one-way street, and that *is* enshrined in law

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind the option of being able to pay a small amount of money for tools that I only use rarely e.g. MS Publisher. I'll never buy it and I couldn't be bothered even trying to pirate it, so I just track down someone who owns it and use it on their PC for a 1 hour session every year or so. Being able to licence it for that one session looks like a win-win to me.

However, the true showstopper issue is that systems that require me to validate my identity against a central system don't work when my Internet connection is unavailable for any reason. Unless/until Internet connectivity is truly universal and as reliable as my water supply, I can't see people bothering with it.

If I don't need to validate my identity against a central system, and the software only runs X times, then what's to stop me creating a VMware instance, installing the software, running it, then blowing away the VMware instance, creating a new one, installing the software again, etc.? Sure, not many people are going to do that, but being able to do it over and over again with little effort will let some kiddie crack the "encryption" scheme being used and publish a crack for it. Once the crack is published, the system is dead - everyone can pay once and use the software indefinitely.

Re:Pros and cons, plus a showstopper...

[SlashdotMeNow]

Software as a service is most beneficial for business users. I don't know what country you live in, but here in Africa we don't have business PCs that are not permanently connected to the internet via either ADSL or fibre. And it's pretty damn reliable, as it should be, since all non-trivial businesses depend on the internet already (e.g. email)

Re:Pros and cons, plus a showstopper...

[darnok]

I'm in Australia. Our infrastructure is probably pretty similar.

However, in many businesses intermittent connection problems to the Internet are not unusual.

Email problems occur every few days, but are generally transparent to the end user and frankly no-one really cares that much if their email message takes an extra hour or so to arrive at the destination.

Internet access drops out from time to time, but then reappears - maybe IT is having to deal with e.g. loads of incoming spam messages and takes systems off the air briefly to clear the backlog. I don't know, and I work in IT - I just don't care enough to pursue it.

However, the real issue is that, for many small/medium enterprises, Internet access isn't as reliable as turning on a tap. The company I'm in now has 3500'ish employees spread across many sites, and has network connectivity problems on at least one site every day. Hardly any of these outages impact me, but you can bet that if a user at a site couldn't run his "software as a service" app during that downtime, it'd affect him *a lot*.

In fact, that issue alone *would* definitely kill the idea at this organization, which is legally obliged to deliver data every day and would suffer very big financial penalties if it couldn't do so.

Make Internet access as reliable as the water, gas, phone etc., and software as a service is well placed. That time, however, is many years away.

Re:Pros and cons, plus a showstopper...

[SlashdotMeNow]

So why is it that my company makes several million dollars in profit every month from software provided as a service?

Proof is in the pudding!

renting software

[mevo]

Renting software, subscription based models, etc. will only be of value when that model provides an aspect of the software that could not be accessed on pure client based. For example, a model with all of the standard options but with ability to access new data from a variety of sources for a market or community. This would then provide much more data to work with, solve new problems, new value added.

Businesses probably won't like this.

[Vermifax]

Or at least the financial sections of businesses won't.

If the software is used frequently enough to be of use, there is currently no financial benefit to paying as you use it unless you are perhaps already paying a subscription fee for usage (mainframe software for example).

Additionally, how do you budget for this software. Companies typically like to make up a sheet saying we will spend X amount of dollars on this 'solution' and then expect you to stick to it. Have you ever tried to change or add on to a project after the initial purchase? It is always much easier to deal with the financial people when you do it up front.

Re:Businesses probably won't like this.

[azaris]

Or at least the financial sections of businesses won't.

Oh really? I'm thinking the exact opposite.

If the software is used frequently enough to be of use, there is currently no financial benefit to paying as you use it unless you are perhaps already paying a subscription fee for usage (mainframe software for example).

This depends so much on the situation it's impossible to make blanket statements like this and hope to be at all accurate.

Additionally, how do you budget for this software. Companies typically like to make up a sheet saying we will spend X amount of dollars on this 'solution' and then expect you to stick to it. Have you ever tried to change or add on to a project after the initial purchase? It is always much easier to deal with the financial people when you do it up front.

This only holds for short-term investments, but if you're talking over the next several years, the future updates and support fudge up your numbers.

The problem comes when the product turns out to be unsuitable or just plain bad after a few months into the implementation. I've heard these stories so many times from the customers of our web-based ASP enterprise software. They buy some expensive system, pay through the nose for hardware and licenses and then it's not usable so they have to spend more money on buying something else. On the other hand, if they'd just signed a monthly service contract that you can terminate with a few months warning, they could salvage most of the investment and move on easier and cheaper.

Not to mention that ASPs usually do all the updates automatically so you don't have to think about those issues.

how does one vendor provide flexibility

[cyril3]

The article says that one of the two main problems with the way things are now is the inadequacy of current models to achieve software flexibility

And that in an environment where any business is able to choose between different Operating Systems, different middleware structures, different applications with sometimes radically different ways of providing a solution and lots of competition between vendors of various sizes who will do anything for you to get your work. That all might be hard to manage and is too difficult for most clueless managers to manage but do we really expect all that being replaced by one vendor and/or their basic structure to be more flexible.

Gee, by definition is can't be can it?

Maybe if you restate the problem as the inadequacy of current general business management models to achieve software flexibility then at least one other solution becomes obvious.

For some apps renting makes sense

[Timbotronic]

How useful is:

• A virus scanner without regular updates?
• Payroll software without the current tax formulas?
• Legal software without the latest laws and precedents?
• "Glass cockpit" avionics without current traffic info, frequencies, weather etc?

Anything that requires regular updates lends itself to a rental model. Doesn't mean you have to ASP the whole thing. And btw, what's new here? Who would want to rent an app like Excel that's used frequently but rarely changes? Whatever Microsoft might want, there's still enough competition from previous versions and OSS to stop that from happening.

Re:For some apps renting makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it not the information, rather than the software, that provides the value to the purchaser?

Risky business....

[Fantasio]

Whether it's web services or software rentals, the problem is the same. If a software company wants to change its business model from software sales to software rentals/services, it is a very, very risky choice. Software companies may think that this solution will ensure a continuous income, but this is not necessarily true. The product must be the best of its kind or have no concurrence, otherwise it's finished. The service will be permanently evaluated by the customer who will always have the possibility to switch to a better alternative (cost of switching included) if one appears.

If, as a customer, I buy some software, I'll stick to it even if it's not perfect and the seller is sure of the corresponding sale. However if I rent it once, find it inadequate or find something better or free, that's the end of the game. And if I use intensively the product, I'll try to buy it ( or even buy a concurrent product if the buying option is not offered), not only because of the direct cost but also for keeping the control of a tool I need for my business.

Actually I can imagine this solution very interesting for rarely used, large, expensive and specialized software that would not be bought otherwise. Typically, because I am a small user of a certain product, I'd be really interested in renting for $200 each time I use (once every two months) this $10000 analysis package that I would never buy otherwise.

If Microsoft does this for Windows or Office, whether for corporate or individual customers, it will rapidly loose its dominant position.

Re:Risky business....

[SlashdotMeNow]

Actually the cost of the software is usually minimal compared to the cost of training users, migrating the data etc. So there is no more incentive for users to switch with service-based software. In fact, once a user is using a service-based application, he will probably only consider a switch to another service-based app, not to a pre-paid one.

Applications like Office will probably be run in the same way as webmail (gmail etc) where the usage is 'free' in exchange for some ad space or whatever. M$ will still make money, because they will save on distribution costs, they will lock in users more, since M$Word2005.net documents will not be available to traditional apps to open/convert if M$ so chooses, and M$ can patch up their one application in one spot. It's great! It also means that your documents will be backed up properly and protected by a team of security experts, rather than just sitting on your HDD that can crash at any moment.

Word 97? You mean Wordpad right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never needed more than Wordpad
offered. RTF has everything you want,
fonts/sizes,align left, align right,
padding, pictures bullets,
its got everything

BSOD/"Illegal Operations"=Lost $$$$$

[Anonymous Coward]

and what if Word or whatever keeps crashing on you, and you have to pay 10 cents to M$ pr restart? That would add up!

the missing ingredient!

[ChipMonk]

I think we have the mysterious second step in our famous sequence:

1. Invent a free OS that works via HTTP.
2. Find some suckers to rent that OS.
3. Profit!

Okay, so some of the kinks have yet to be worked out.

I think it would be less than Free...

[r6144]

RMS has always maintained that there should be no restrictions placed on using the software, and actually if your license contains such a clause you will have to make the user click through it, since starting a service using your software is allowed by default in copyright law.

One possibility

[Trejkaz]

If the WSDL file which is served up by the server has a GPL license attached to it, then no client software would be able to use this "code" without themselves being GPL software.

Right?

But I suppose a mechanism other than WSDL might be harder to protect in a similar fashion.

Re:One possibility

[agentforsythe]

eh?

Not sure I quite follow your reasoning. If I view a web page served from an apache server, does my browser have to be GPL?

Re:One possibility

[Trejkaz]

That's completely different. In web services, you need the WSDL file in order to actually access the service at all. It becomes something like a library which you use to access the service. A web browser served from an Apache server... first of all, Apache isn't GPL, and second of all, the page isn't required to implement your web browser.

Classic Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

We have an article on "Negotiating in Service-Oriented Environments"

Someone posts this as "service-oriented model of software delivery"

People react to it on how software-service is the next biggest / worst / whatever thing.

If only some would realize, it is about negotiating to get to a software service that you can use...

Why bother ?

[Salsaman]

There is so much fantastic Free Open Source software around these days, who the heck bothers *buying* software, let alone renting it...

Is this the last gasp of the proprietary software business, desperately looking for ways to fleece the customer for every last penny ?

Thanks, but you can keep your software "rentals".

Re:Why bother ?

[angrykeyboarder]

Why bother? Because (as they say) you get what you pay for. Some of the "fantastic free Open Source Software" isn't all that fantastic. A lot of it is fantastic, but a lot of it isn't.

I've made it a point to use Open Source Software as much as possible (on Windows) in recent months and frankly a lot of what I've seen isn't as good as retail, proprietary products (or even Shareware, for that matter).

You get what you pay for.

Don't get me wrong, there is some great stuff out there that's free and Open Source. Nevertheless, a lot of it is still not as good as retail product.

Unless or until that changes there will still be a market for retail software (be it sale, or rental).

History...

[Anonymous Coward]

And thus History will repeat itself. IBM apparently hasn't learned from its software-rental, mainframe days...

my head's gonna explode

[Anonymous Coward]

WSDL (Web Services Description Language), UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration), and WSFL (Web Services Flow Language). The article primarily covers the three phases of negotiating, ending with actual service delivery.

yeah right, i can already see the heads of my fellow programmers exploding when trying to learn yet another protocol.

Could we make an effort to keep things simple. PLEASE !

Re:Sounds familiar (or 'I am an idiot')

[SlashdotMeNow]

You obviously don't work in the industry, or you work at some old-fashioned company with no decent vision. We've been working with web services with MANY of our suppliers for YEARS. And I know MANY companies that's selling software as a service RIGHT NOW and making a huge success.

We do that too. We give our clients the option: Buy the licence outright, or rent it. So far out of 700 sales we have not a single buyer.

Also I hear BS about how this is bad trusting a third party with your data. The truth is that these companies will take MUCH better care of your data than the average user will. I.e. continual backups, proper security and the like. Our clients can sleep easy knowing that a dedicated team of professionals are looking after their important data very carefully.

Deja vu all over again

[Anonymous Coward]

The commercial software industry has been pushing this wet dream for how many years now? Under how many different names? Dick-er-diskless workstations, thin clients, Web services, application service providers, this-that-and-the-other "open" licensing, Windows Update...oops!

It's never gonna fly. Even senior managers understand it's a gigantic juggernaut. Try and tell the COO of any major corporation how wonderful it's going to be that someone in Kuala Lumpur is going to push a button and install an "enhancement" to his bookkeeping system while they're figuring the quarterly dividend. Hell, what's a few hundred million one way or the other? How about the same thing happening while they're counting the votes in a Presidential elec....oh, yeah, I forgot...

I laugh at you sir.

[SlashdotMeNow]

Users will choose software as a service because of the benefit it has over traditional software. For a large section of the software market this will make traditional software pale into nothingness compared to what service-based software can provide:

- Access your data anywhere you want, from any PC that has a browser
- Don't worry about losing your data, since a team of professionals will make sure it's secure and backed up at all times
- Never worry about updating and upgrading - it will happen automatically.
- Connect your software with other systems in real-time, without you having to buy a server.
- Have more sex
- etc.

In a word: Duh! We already see web-mail services being better at filtering spam, easier to access if you're away from your normal PC and so on. Many users pay for this service. I know quite a few businesses that won't use their ISP's mail server, because of these reasons. They choose web-mail. This is expanding in many many different sections of the software market. The big players like MS will take longer to start doing this, because they have a significant investment in creating traditional software. But newer companies like Google will start to exploit the benefits they can provide with web-based software. In 10 years I'll bet that a large percentage of software systems will be service-based, probably over a browser or other thin client.

Digital [Identity] is NEVER secure

[Anonymous Coward]

"How long before the said software gets "pirated" and publishers invokes DMCA?"

How long before all your "secrets" get "borrowed" and you invoke the privacy and "identity theft" laws?

Just another FAT example

[mistermax]

of greed- they can't SELL it any more so they'll RENT it. This is reminiscent of CRM and the move to locking down mdeia files to a particular player. GREED. How much cash do the big boys want?

Re:Just another FAT example

[Anonymous Coward]

How much cash do the big boys want?

How much have you got?

Cool! A Marxist Libertarian

[Anonymous Coward]

"even Karl Marx said that the tariff, not slavery, was the issue"

And if Karl Marx said it, it must be true, right?

Well, it's a nice change to see a libertarian quote Marx as an Infallible Authority, instead of Ayn Rand or Robert Heinlein.

(BTW, anyone who talks about "the" issue that caused the South to secede/started the Civil War reveals in one step that they don't know what they're talking about. As usual in history, more than one issue/cause was involved.)

Acronyms? I think not

[TeknoHog]

Acronym is a special kind of abbreviation that can be pronounced as a word. Those described in the article are not acronyms, whereas NATO and BASIC are.

http://everything2.org/?node=acronym

Re:Acronyms? I think not

[Antibozo]

That's correct. The cited terms are initialisms, but not acronyms.

And I laugh at you in turn

[vadim_t]

First, the example you talk about doesn't really apply here. It makes sense to pay every month for a mail server because electricity, a network connection, support, etc are recurrent charges to the mail provider. If you owned your own, you'd do exactly the same. You pay somebody else because you don't have the infrastructure or admins for it. There's no way a mail provider could charge a single fee without going bankrupt due to customers who use the service for too long.

Now, it makes no sense at all for software. When I buy MS Word, MS doesn't need to pay every month for the maintenance of that service. I'm the one who pays for the electricity for the computer it runs on, and the one who pays for the support.

Second, you present a kind of a renting 'Nirvana' where everything will go great and nothing will ever fail. In practice, outsourcing critical infrastructure is a *huge* mistake, because then it will be out of your control. If your company's business will grind to a halt without a working word processor, you don't buy a subscription that makes it possible to suddenly stop working.

Even if your data is all safely backed up, what happens when this company goes out of business? Are you sure they'll make an effort to contact you to send your data to you? Will you be able to do anything useful with it if they disappear?

Re:And I laugh at you in turn

[SlashdotMeNow]

>> There's no way a mail provider could charge a single fee without going bankrupt due to customers who use the service for too long. Uh... you cound buy your own mail server? E.g. Exchange Server? Duh! >> Now, it makes no sense at all for software. When I buy MS Word, MS doesn't need to pay every month for the maintenance of that service. I'm the one who pays for the electricity for the computer it runs on, and the one who pays for the support. Just as with the mail example, if Word was a web-application the providor would have ongoing costs (disk space, servers, bandwidht) and so he would have to charge monthly fees! Duh! >> If your company's business will grind to a halt without a working word processor, you don't buy a subscription that makes it possible to suddenly stop working. In most companies email is a critical service. In ours a day without email would be a day with everyone sitting around doing nothing and losing money. But email is frequently oursourced. And I do have experience with this both ways - we hosted our own mail servers, and we outsourced. And outsourced servers are in general more reliable, because the providor does ONLY that. It's his whole business, and so he would go to much greater lengths to ensure service to us. Duh! I don't think Google or MS will go out of business overnight without letting anyone know. Idiot

Re:How about reading my own files after cancelling

[Anne Thwacks]

how to read your .doc v9 document if Word v9 is only available on subscription, and you don't have a subscription?

Easy - use OpenOffice!

server-side GPL

[steve_l]

My friends at 1060research have a license like this.

It says you can run your server with all OSS software (bsd, GPL, and other OSI certified license), or you pay for the closed-source version.

This means that OSS apps can use the framework for hosting their systems, but if you want to stay closed source, you need to pay. It's primarily that way for business reasons -to make companies who dont want OSS code to pay- but it's an interesting idea.

WSDL does not propagate the GPL.

[steve_l]

I must disagree, somewhat.

There is no direct linkage from the client to the server, simply an XML file that provides hints to the caller as to what structure to send messages. Hints that may or may not be ignored.

WSDL files that are hand-written may be released under a license, but what if the WSDL is machine generated by a runtime, such as the Apache one?

Nor is it mandatory to use WSDL to talk to a SOAP service. With any written documentation as to request structure I could perhaps rewrite my own WSDL/compose XML messages without any direct importing of the WSDL File. Or I could use the WSDL from a non GPL server and then rebind the client to a GPL instance. If they shared the same WSDL (and consistent behavour), I should not have to care what the licensing of the endpoint was.

-Steve Loughran, Apache Axis SOAP stack team.

I didn't say it would stop abuse!

[Trejkaz]

Look at it this way:

Right now, I could take a program which accepts text input and gives text output, which is GPL, and attach to its standard input and output. There is no linkage from that program to mine, but most people would agree that my program constitutes a derivative work.

Now, put the program on the other end of a network connection. There is still no linkage from the program to mine, and the results of my program are still the same, so it is still a derivative work. If it isn't, then I can use this trick as a loophole for any GPL software which accepts standard input and output! I can just write a server, have it listen on localhost, and then everything will work just as before.

Now, make the network protocol XML over HTTP. Why is the client still not a derivative work here?

I say that in the end, the program author decides what a derivative work is. If I decide that connecting to my web service with a client makes that client a derivative work of the service, then it is a derivative work. Whether or not it technically stops users abusing the license is irrelevant, as people will abuse licenses forever.

Re:I didn't say it would stop abuse!

[steve_l]

ooh, this is a slippery slope.

LGPL says 'linkage', with a model of linkage that works well with C++ (but not java, where everything is really a lib). GPL says 'any incorporation into a program', be it static or dynamic linkage.

To say my license applies to things that produce or consume data, even if separate or remote processes is a new extension. Certainly classic GPL doesnt cover it, but you could always write a new license to extend it.

If you take an existing GPL bit of code, you probably could wrap it with more code (GPL too), and publish a service interface that provides all the core functionality of the library, to other apps/processes. It is definitely a workaround. Which doesnt need SOAP, WSDL, all those fancy things -just boring old Corba would work fine, we have the Bonobo ORB to route stuff, ...etc.

You run the risk of offending people who wrote the code you have wrapped, but I think that may be better than software licenses controlling who uses the data that apps produce.

hi

[adalberto_kapiloff]

kose ku tose
gawusi sep bot kal se
sep xi gugoc na

Rent my bandwidth to run your software

[pappin]

So, does this mean I can ask for renumeration for the bandwidth they use while I'm using their software? I do have to pay for the bandwidth & their software after all.

Defining Derivative Works

[ThosLives]

I think you've hit on something very interesting here with your description of a program using stdin/stdout from a GPLed program by your program. I'm not sure I agree that this makes your program a derivative work. There is a case where I think yours would be a derivative work, but using input and output might not be. I realize these are my observations and opinions on the matter, but I think this type of discussion needs to happen when talking about this kind of thing.

If my program is just using the input and output from program X, my program might require program X, but it's not really derived from program X. In my book, and using a strict definition, a "derivation" is something that is a modification of the entity. For instance, most of the 8-cylinder engines used by Ford are derivatives of each other (they share common components, common limitations, etc). However, a vehicle that uses that engine is NOT a derivative of the engine! (Of course, some cars themeselves are derivatives of each other - like the Lincoln Navigator and Ford Expedition). Something that uses a library should not be considered a "derivative" of that library - only other things that are a modification of that library should be considered a derivative. Other libraries that serve the same purpose as a given library should also not be considered derivatives (unless they are, of course, modifications of another library).

This probably sounds like I'm trying to take away ownership power from those folks who write core libraries, but that's not my intention. My goal is to point out that if you start broadening the definition of "derivative" then [greedy folks] will likely start to extend this into the physical realm - is a house a derivative work of a brick?

Sure, I'm beating the semantic horse here, but it's important to understand the implications of all proposals. The goal of GPL is to increase public knowledge by making source code available while affording the authors some appropriate protection to the ownership of their work. Another goal of the GPL (and similar licenses) is to discourage making a profit by people with no vested work in some resource (namely libraries, a tool, etc) without making those same resources available. (There is nothing against making a profit by using the resources - just against keeping a lid on those resources).

Another thing mentioned in a grandparent post brought up a tricky point: is output a derivative work of code? It's very dangerous to say that this is true in a general case because then you create precedent for saying things like "the sound waves produced by my speaker are a derivative work of this copyrighted song". If the output of a [piece of code] is some other similarly usable form of that [piece of code] then the output could be considered a derivative work, but output in general is not a derivative work of anything. (If the output of a picture-editing program is a modified other picture, is that a new picture entirely or a derivative of the first picture? This is a tricky thing in the print world - think about making a mosaic of pictures from magazines; that mosaic uses all copyrighted pictures, but itself is a new piece of art - does permission from each of the individual copyright holders of each little image need to be obtained to reproduce the mosaic? I don't know the answer to that one...It's trying to answer the question "how much do I have to modify a thing or things to make them no longer the original things or based on the original things?" - much more challenging with creative products rather than physical ones.)

Playing the "derivative works" card is powerful, but much care needs to be taken. I think I've only touched on a couple of the issues, but as you can see there's a lot at stake.

While I respect the view that it should be the "author's decision" if something is derivative or not, I'd rather have some objective measure defined - even if I might not agree with it.

Re:Defining Derivative Works

[Trejkaz]

A particular example of the stdin/stdout issue is in xpdf, which maintains that using its command-line tools in any fashion counts as a derivative. As for this one...

"the sound waves produced by my speaker are a derivative work of this copyrighted song"

Have you noticed that buying a CD doesn't give you the right to play it to an "audience"? I wonder what counts as an audience here, but it always did look like a pretty stupid thing to have in a license. Crazy shit. :-/

Major Kusanagi's Option

[grikdog]

Remember? In GITS1, she could always opt out of the system, provided she returned the company software operating her brain. Not Open Software, so no thanks.

Re:Software architecture SOA - SO?

[jrumney]

What comes after SOA?

SOB, of course.

As in this POC is a SOB to actually use in reality due to its <machine-readable type="xsd:humn-unrdbl"/> self-describing format, that does nothing to eliminate the requirement for a human developer to understand the system they are connecting to and how to use it..

Startup time and code signing

[tepples]

Openoffice.org should be a site which loads office applications into you browser

Then people would be female dogging even worse about "OpenOffice.org is slow". Currently, a Java platform run-time environment takes too long to start for these to compete with Microsoft Office. In addition, for those programs that aren't backed by Sun, a code signing certificate to allow web-based Java programs to save to your hard drive often costs too much for free software developers to deploy the programs.

Technicalities and enforcement

[maximilln]

What's the difference between renting and licensing, anyway? In terms of what you, the consumer, are entitled to--it's close to nothing.

The industry will never move into renting because the gig is too good with licensing. Consider this from the point of view of enforcement:

Violation of a rental agreement is a civil matter which requires the provider to retain their own legal counsel and make a case against the offender. Violation of a license agreement is a felony which the FBI will be happy to investigate and the US Attorney General will prosecute for you.

On the other hand, this could be a political push to broaden the powers of the provider for the violation of a rental agreement. Now your landlord can have your butt thrown in jail by the FBI if you're late with your rent.

Reality Now

[4of12]

How many people with valid licenses for Windows 3.1 are using those licenses? I would venture that many of those people who have multiple valid licenses for OS or other software products are using only the most recent versions.

Software rental is effectively a reality now.

It's just the time period of rental is longer than the software manufacturers would like.

Degradation into uselessness, upgrade treadmill, - whatever you want to call it - has already made temporary use of software a practical reality.

Re:First Nader Post

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be nice if this guy had any chance of winning. But he doesn't.

GPL Doesn't Care

[Anonymous Coward]

If services are rendered without actually transferring a binary executable of the GPL'd software, then the GPL doesn't care. Otherwise there would already problems with any GPL'd server performing any kind of service. It's not about services performed; it's about copying the code.

Great

[sad_]

More control for them, even less control for us.

Is this going to help the customer in any way, will it increase the quality of the software, will it be cheaper for the customer? My guess to all these questions is - NO.