Urgent help needed: Licensing snafu following server crash
Brian K. White
brian at aljex.com
Tue Sep 18 17:01:43 PDT 2007
Converseley, lets look at some already done deeds, simple facts and history,
anything that has had a licence manager that got in my way has gotten erased
from the face of my universe.
SCO, gone.
Vsifax, gone.
Facetwin, gone. (oh it's still on most boxes, but we don't need it anymore.)
Backupedge, gone. (though I would still highly recommend, practically
require it for traditional single_server_no_IT_guy shops.)
Doublevision, gone.
I'm probably forgetting some.
Yet, we still use and happily pay something per-user-per-year for pc-miler,
because it doesn't get in my way. It works immediately on any new box or
restored or modified box just by copying.
By now all that's left to occupy my full attention, which I have so
successfully applied everywhere else my gaze fell, is fP. So far, as of
5.0.14, fP does not get in my way. This new licence file, even if it doesn't
require running a manager daemon, is it still broken by tape restores? new
hardware? moving to other servers in other locations with other IP's etc?
Seems like it would have to or else what's it's point? Well I'm sorry fP
doesn't like this, but that gets in MY way. Currently I can make certain
promises and assurances to my customers about uptime and availability and
speed of recovery. I see no reason to accept a step backwards in this area
and refuse to do so.
I feel less and less bad that we too have finally started writing new stuff
in other frameworks besides fP, and started shifting existing code out of fp
or changing it such that it requires vastly fewer licenses by packaging up
the work into to black box routines which cgi's or other front ends use for
a split second instead of a user sitting at a clerk session all day. Even if
we never shed fP completely, we're going from needing 256 full users per 200
user box (sometimes only dclerk/dreport works, or so my cohorts avow, I
don't beleive it), to maybe 5 run-times per 200 user box. And remember, we
must be one of the most extreme examples of being heavily invested in fp
talent, and only in fp talent. All of us are practically ignorant of
anything but fp, and on top of that remember our pool includes Sue Berdoff
and Howie himself. And it's worth it for US to venture forth. How much less
provocation must anyone else need?
Personally, I would rather spend my time and my energy and my ingenuity
making my customers want to pay me rather than forcing them to pay me and
hunting down spilled milk. Certainly the other way works for some companies.
MS operates that way. I just paid for Windows Vista Business, not because I
wanted it but because MS and Sony made some deal where Sony must include
vista on every new TZ notebook, and further must not support any other
option, to the extent that they can't (or don't anyways) even supply drivers
for for Windows XP let alone linux. Certainly this way of operating can be
called "successful" in that, MS sure sold a lot of copies of Vista. Most
people could care less but even a guy like me who cares a lot they extracted
it out of even me against my very strong will! But no amount of that kind of
"success" is worth feeling good about yourself. You really don't care if
your customers resent you or love you? Even if it only took one hour to
write the new license scheme (LUAGH) and didn't cost you or any customers or
any end users one further minute of grief (LUAGH!!!), There must be no less
than 50 items in the wish list and bug list databases, _each_ probably, that
have been in there for over 5 years, that could have been done, and greatly
appreciated by all, instead.
I am the customer. Make ME happy, or get lost.
Brian K. White brian at aljex.com http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro BBx Linux SCO FreeBSD #callahans Satriani Filk!
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Esak" <john at valar.com>
To: "Filepro-List at Lists. Celestial. Com" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 7:04 PM
Subject: RE: Urgent help needed: Licensing snafu following server crash
> Hey Barry,
> It's nice to know that you do *not* have to run the license server manager
> if you aren't doing anything special like pointing to a different license
> server or etc. We don't run fplmserver anymore. The problem we had *was*
> fixed, and I think it would work fine, but it is one of those things that
> if
> it ain't broke don't fix it items. We have a correct license and that is
> all that's really needed.
>
> I absolutely agree with whoever said the license manager and licensing in
> general have *ultar* value for filePro. There is no argument there. Had it
> been in place 20 years ago, this would be one of the major computer
> programs
> running today. The many tens of thousands of Tandy Xenix users alone would
> have driven the development along more mainstream channels and with enough
> revenue that things would have been *very* different today. I hope the
> licensing does whatever good it can do now that it is in place.
>
> John
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: filepro-list-bounces+john=valar.com at lists.celestial.com
>> [mailto:filepro-list-bounces+john=valar.com at lists.celestial.com] On
>> Behalf
>> Of Barry Wiseman
>> Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 4:02 PM
>> To: filePro list
>> Subject: Re: Urgent help needed: Licensing snafu following server crash
>>
>> Barry Wiseman wrote:
>> > [snip long sorry tale of license management gone south following
>> crash/reboot]
>>
>> Thanks to Jose, Mark and Brian for offering suggestions, and an
>> entertaining rant on
>> the evils of license management, respectively.
>>
>> For those who may dare the journey to 5.0.15 and beyond, let me report
>> the
>> outcome of
>> today's adventure.
>>
>> I want to thank Ron Kracht for shepherding this issue through channels
>> for
>> me, and
>> for racking his brain for every helpful suggestion he could think of.
>>
>> First he had Lauren provide me a new correct licfp.dat file (no
>> explanation at any
>> point of how the "incorrect" file worked for over a month). This gave
>> more expected
>> output from the licinfo utility, which now showed a correct license
>> number
>> and user
>> count. However, dclerk still reported finding a single-user demo
>> license.
>>
>> In the end, I was working both with Ron and with Ray in tech support.
>> One
>> or both of
>> the following steps (which occurred pretty much concurrently)
>> accomplished
>> the fix:
>>
>> Ray cobbled up an Even More Correct(TM) license file. Meanwhile Ron, who
>> had logged
>> into the user's server, realized that the licfp.bkp file, which needs to
>> be an
>> identical copy of licfp.dat (who knew?), was instead a copy of the
>> former,
>> "bad" file.
>>
>> At this point, the 5.0.15 dclerk is happily acknowledging the 64-user
>> license once again.
>>
>> Here is the portion of Ray's writeup which was emailed to me:
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------
>> Support Incident # 07004406
>> License error in 5.6 install that has been running for several months
>>
>> rah 09/18/2007 - MAC address previoulsy used as a check value for Linux
>> (this no
>> longer works). After changing the check value to FQDN with value returned
>> by
>> hostname, all worked.
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -------
>>
>> At the zenith of my frustration, I had complained to Ron,
>>
>> These people have been down a number of hours, for no good reason
>> (i.e., license management doesn't add any value to the product!).
>>
>> Giving the devil his due, here is his response to that thought. FWIW.
>>
>> I would take issue with your contention that license management doesn't
>> add any value
>> to the product. A minor advantage is that it allows products, feature,
>> and
>> user count
>> changes merely by downloading a new license file rather than a new set of
>> programs.
>> The major advantages are that it allows us to devote more of our
>> resources
>> to
>> improving the product. We now build, maintain, and distribute one set of
>> programs per
>> platform rather than the multiple sets we had to previously. We also
>> discovered
>> numerous customers who were running illegal copies of filePro installed
>> by
>> unscrupulous consultants. Since the customers were not at fault, and in
>> most cases
>> had no idea they didn't have valid licensed copies of filePro, we allowed
>> them to
>> upgrade as though they had been fully licensed. I remember one case in
>> particular
>> where nearly every office in an office complex was running unlicensed
>> copies of
>> filePro all installed by the same consultant - who had since disappeared.
>> That
>> consultant had purchased one copy of filePro and installed it for all his
>> customers.
>> In the same way that insurance fraud and shoplifting hurt all customers
>> this hurt
>> our properly licensed customers.
>>
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>> Barry Wiseman barry at gensoftdes.com
>> Genesis Software Designs, Inc. Voice: (212) 889-9191
>> 55 West 45 Street, New York, NY 10036 Fax: (212) 889-1589
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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