mx said:
UMMM *NO* the original-poster mentioned somewhere in his rant that
the license terms of Mentor, Cadence, and Synopsys
are *tied* to a physical site. Actually the software license is bound
to 3 specific items:
a) authorized hardware (license node/server)
<AND>
b) physical site (company location, with defined 'distance radius')
<AND>
c) the party/persons/company named on the purchase-order
That's *AND* (not OR.) Change any 1 of the above, and you have to
contact the vendor to renew/re-validate your license. (This doesn't
automatically mean you have to *repurchase* the software...)
(b) Buying a laptop, taking it on the road, and using it to run the
EDA sofware falls under 'running the software outside of the
physical site.' All you've done with your laptop, is place
both the license-server and execution-machine in the same
machine (your laptop), instead of just taking the execution-machine
The physical-site limitation is so restrictive, that technically
speaking, if a customer merely relocates its office more than a
few miles, their software-liense is invalidated. Obvioualy,
no EDA-vendor requires the customer to repurchase the software. They
merely update the license contract with the customer's new (street)
address.
The physical location restriction is completely ridiculus.
Upon further thinking about its implications, one could figure that
the software is almost infinitely crappy. The implications are such
that the user of such a software cannot show it on an exhibition.
All the other limitations are dream world stuff. It cannot be legally
proven that the software was used at home beside the pool even when it
is run by the correct user on the correct machine. Nor can be legally
proven that it was shown to a colleage at whatever location.
IMO, a very obvious way to try to keep the software off the public eyes.
I happend to work once with such kind of software, 40k$ per seat, plus
something per year, and the user interface was such awkward and clumsy,
that I wished the developpers being beaten up for every minute I had to
work with. If such feelings spread too quickly and too openly, the
business would be on the downslope rather quick. Since such software is
usually purchased by people who will never work with it, the employee
on this software has to be eternally gratefull to be able to work with
this software and deliver the expected results.
IMO, such restrictions are an indication for crap to be stayed away from.
Rene