Permanent Isn't, A Femlab License Warning
by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created:  Nov 12, 2007
Updated:  Aug 2, 2011
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/docs/permanent.txt

Many years ago, a faculty member purchased a one-user use-anywhere
permanent license for Femlab.  It has been kept around mostly for
giggles and occasional light use.  The license server for Femlab runs
on a machine that has had a long, useful life and is now looking
forward to a quiet life of retirement in the closet.

It should have been a doddle to get a new license file from Comsol.

Instead, I got doublespeak and marketspeak.  

I was told that the program was too old and that Comsol did not have
"direct access" to a license generator to generate old keys.  What this
really meant was "you haven't been paying us a yearly fee to keep the
subscription updated, so we won't generate a new file for you even
though it is a permanent license."

Then I was given two recommendations:

1) keep the machine running just for the license server

or

2) Spend $$$ to buy the latest version of Femlab

I laughed out loud at both of these.  I also have to give them
beaucoup credit:  it takes some serious chutzpah to say "fuck you"
in one paragraph and "buy the latest version of our software"
in the next.

Let's make sure we are all clear here, yes?  I was not upgrading
an OS and asking them to make an old version of Femlab work on it.
I was not asking for a new version of Femlab.  I was not asking for
technical support for an old version of Femlab.  All I wanted was
to move the license server from one machine to another and Comsol
either could not or would not help.

So, not only did I have to initially set up a license server so
that Femlab would run, but later that same license server was
used to deny me the use of Femlab and perhaps force me to upgrade.
Isn't copy protection grand?

In the Comsol dictionary, permanent appears to mean:

permanent if you continue to pay your subscription

or

permanent until something happens to your license server

What did I do?  I'm lucky because I run Solaris 9.  I found the hid2 
program, got the license to work on another machine and will recommend 
forever and ever against the purchase of Femlab due to Comsol's customer 
service.

Well done Comsol, very well done.

***

Interestingly, Comsol is not unique in this behavior.  ITT Visual
Information Solutions does the same thing.  You cannot move the IDL
license server from one machine to another (they deliciously call it 
"rehosting") without paying for a current license.

Not only do you have to put up with copy protection after you have
legally paid for a product, but you have to continually pay to keep
the copy protection working.  Which leads to an obvious question:

Do you own your tools or do your tools own you?