Comments on: Ideal Software Licensing Model – Requirements Collection http://itsjustanotherlayer.com/2010/02/ideal-software-licensing-model-requirementscollection/ Virtualization is a layer in software. What are you abstracting away from? Wed, 04 Jan 2012 10:55:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: BradC http://itsjustanotherlayer.com/2010/02/ideal-software-licensing-model-requirementscollection/comment-page-1/#comment-1461 BradC Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:23:28 +0000 http://itsjustanotherlayer.com/?p=336#comment-1461 I often find that trying to figure out and/or conform to licensing models is more expensive that the dollar amount we would pay for it, making open source and home grown solutions much more economical. For most software, don't license based on the computer that the software is running on, license based on how the software is going to be used, or based on a number or set of numbers that is within the domain of the value you are providing. If it's a SQL server then limit database size, database count, or transactions per second. If it's a web shopping cart then limit the number of items for sale, or the total dollar amount per month. IT software is where virtualization causes problems, since the hardware is the domain of the software. If a monitoring or backup software is based on the number of hosts, it costs me money to break a large application into multiple VMs. If it's licensed based on virtual hosts then it costs me more to buy lots of small hosts instead of a few large ones.To make it worse, if the VM does it's job, there's no fool-proof way for the licensed software to even know that it's in a VM, making enforcing any sort of special VM-only licensing very difficult. I often find that trying to figure out and/or conform to licensing models is more expensive that the dollar amount we would pay for it, making open source and home grown solutions much more economical.

For most software, don’t license based on the computer that the software is running on, license based on how the software is going to be used, or based on a number or set of numbers that is within the domain of the value you are providing. If it’s a SQL server then limit database size, database count, or transactions per second. If it’s a web shopping cart then limit the number of items for sale, or the total dollar amount per month.

IT software is where virtualization causes problems, since the hardware is the domain of the software. If a monitoring or backup software is based on the number of hosts, it costs me money to break a large application into multiple VMs. If it’s licensed based on virtual hosts then it costs me more to buy lots of small hosts instead of a few large ones.To make it worse, if the VM does it’s job, there’s no fool-proof way for the licensed software to even know that it’s in a VM, making enforcing any sort of special VM-only licensing very difficult.

]]> By: Ideal Software Licensing Model - Requirements Collection | It#39;s … « Seo Elite http://itsjustanotherlayer.com/2010/02/ideal-software-licensing-model-requirementscollection/comment-page-1/#comment-1459 Ideal Software Licensing Model - Requirements Collection | It#39;s … « Seo Elite Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:44:17 +0000 http://itsjustanotherlayer.com/?p=336#comment-1459 [...] Today found this great post, read this quick excerpt : What is an ideal software licensing model when dealing with physical instances, virtual instances and what is needed to make it all good for vendors and clients? Read the rest of this great post Here [...] [...] Today found this great post, read this quick excerpt : What is an ideal software licensing model when dealing with physical instances, virtual instances and what is needed to make it all good for vendors and clients? Read the rest of this great post Here [...]

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