> Whatever happened to Asynchronous Transfer Mode anyway?
It's alive and well, primarily as an infrastructure networking topology. Hell, ATM acts as the backbone fabric to several national ISPs providing bandwith in the 100s of Mbps range.
However, as a desktop topology, it's kind of expensive.
> However I cannot understand how will a company enforce a software on a single CPU-ID only.
> Not all copies of software are sold with the computer and the CD is burnt with the CPUID somewhere. (They can't Microsoft refund action are in the way to stop it, hopefully they will)
> If I decided one one day to buy Wincrash and I have used Linux before (unrational, I know), then how can M$ make me use it on one CPU? they dont know the CPUID and cant burn it on the CDROM after installation!
hmmm... seems that it would be fairly easy to mass produce CDs that werent locked to a specific CPU at the factory, but upon install became so.
Simply embed some form of license database check function that relies on the presence of two keys/codes: one being the CPU-ID of the chip, the other being some form of mathematical complement of the CPU-ID issued by the software vendor. Upon receipt and installation of the vendor issued complement, an unlocking key is formed and the full featured OS is available. Until the full key is there, only functions minimally necessary to get that key installed are enabled.
and, as a check against crackers who figure out what the complement generating formula is, release the software in coded lots, such that each lot uses a slightly different algorithm to generate the functionaly license components.
such a scheme would also allow you to install the same media on multiple machines, and only have the vendor charge you on a 'per key' basis. you want to upgrade or move your instance of the OS, contact the vendor, and they generate you a new key (for a "small" fee, of course).
then again, im not a licensing expert, so this might be either impossible or impractical to implement.
> 2. It will be a long time before software support is in place for this, at least for the OS (how long does it take M$ to add a new feature?), and even if it is included in Linux (which I doubt)
hmm... this is a dubious assumption. How long do you think it would take to port FlexLM to Linux or NT? And, if a software company that already uses some sort of licensing key to unlock its software on other OS's, how long is it going to take for them to put that code -back in- the code theyve ported to OS's that dont support good ID scheme's?
> 3. Licensing software to a particular CPU is just stupid....what happens when you upgrade? You have to get a new licence.... HOW ANNOYING
Im just guessing here, but youved never worked in the world of commercial Unix (or mainframe, even) environments. If you did, youd know this was common practice. Hell, some software packages, such as Oracle, charge you licensing fees based on the NUMBER of CPU's and tie the license to a system ID. Move the aplication, relicense the software. Add or Subtract CPUs, relicense the software.
> 4. What if you have multiple CPUs? What ID do you use?
probably, you would use some equivalent of the output of `hostid` or `sysinfo` or `lmhostid` (these are just ones that come to mind).
Slashdot Mirror
Downloadable implementations at Munitions! or at a faster UK mirror all outside the US.
- Ferric
> Whatever happened to Asynchronous Transfer Mode anyway?
It's alive and well, primarily as an infrastructure networking topology. Hell, ATM acts as the backbone fabric to several national ISPs providing bandwith in the 100s of Mbps range.
However, as a desktop topology, it's kind of expensive.
-tom
> However I cannot understand how will a company enforce a software on a single CPU-ID only.
> Not all copies of software are sold with the computer and the CD is burnt with the CPUID somewhere. (They can't Microsoft refund action are in the way to stop it, hopefully they will)
> If I decided one one day to buy Wincrash and I have used Linux before (unrational, I know), then how can M$ make me use it on one CPU? they dont know the CPUID and cant burn it on the CDROM after installation!
hmmm... seems that it would be fairly easy to mass produce CDs that werent locked to a specific CPU at the factory, but upon install became so.
Simply embed some form of license database check function that relies on the presence of two keys/codes: one being the CPU-ID of the chip, the other being some form of mathematical complement of the CPU-ID issued by the software vendor. Upon receipt and installation of the vendor issued complement, an unlocking key is formed and the full featured OS is available. Until the full key is there, only functions minimally necessary to get that key installed are enabled.
and, as a check against crackers who figure out what the complement generating formula is, release the software in coded lots, such that each lot uses a slightly different algorithm to generate the functionaly license components.
such a scheme would also allow you to install the same media on multiple machines, and only have the vendor charge you on a 'per key' basis. you want to upgrade or move your instance of the OS, contact the vendor, and they generate you a new key (for a "small" fee, of course).
then again, im not a licensing expert, so this might be either impossible or impractical to implement.
-tom
> 2. It will be a long time before software support is in place for this, at least for the OS (how long does it take M$ to add a new feature?), and even if it is included in Linux (which I doubt)
hmm... this is a dubious assumption. How long do you think it would take to port FlexLM to Linux or NT? And, if a software company that already uses some sort of licensing key to unlock its software on other OS's, how long is it going to take for them to put that code -back in- the code theyve ported to OS's that dont support good ID scheme's?
> 3. Licensing software to a particular CPU is just stupid....what happens when you upgrade? You have to get a new licence.... HOW ANNOYING
Im just guessing here, but youved never worked in the world of commercial Unix (or mainframe, even) environments. If you did, youd know this was common practice. Hell, some software packages, such as Oracle, charge you licensing fees based on the NUMBER of CPU's and tie the license to a system ID. Move the aplication, relicense the software. Add or Subtract CPUs, relicense the software.
> 4. What if you have multiple CPUs? What ID do you use?
probably, you would use some equivalent of the output of `hostid` or `sysinfo` or `lmhostid` (these are just ones that come to mind).