In a message posted Sun, 2 Apr 1995 14:12:28 -0600 (MDT) to these lists,
Charlie Jui wrote (regarding information on Digital's WWW server):
> I have one question for any DEC people who might be out there:
> How are we to interpret the paragraph:
>
> "After August 1, 1995, the free offer and distribution will end and the
> coexistence tools will be sold directly from Boston Business Computing and
> Sector 7".
>
> Does this mean that after Aug. 1 the PAK's or licenses will expire and should
> we actually find ourselves using the tool, we shall have to pay for a
> renewal license at that time any way? Or are the licenses we receive for
> these products perpetual? Will the software stop working unless we fork over
> more money at that time?
>
> I assume that we shall have to pay for updates of these products if we
> want to have them...but do the copies being shipped have built-in time-bombs?
I passed his message along to my colleague, Richie Holstein, who did much of
the work on the project to get these tools packaged and available for your
use, and he sent me the following reply, which he asked me to post on his
behalf (and on behalf of his colleague, Suzanne LaForge). Note that it asks
for your feedback; if you have comments, please send them directly to Richie
and Suzanne, as they will not necessarily be monitoring these mailing lists.
--------------- content of their message -------------------
Digital's announcement of bundled interoperability tools for OpenVMS
and Digital UNIX (DEC OSF/1) contains the paragraph:
"After August 1, 1995, the free offer and distribution will end
and the coexistence tools will be sold directly from Boston
Business Computing and Sector 7".
People have questioned the fate of software they received prior to that
date.
1) It is only the contract between Digital and the two ISVs, Boston
Business Computing and Sector 7, which will expire on August 1, 1995.
2) The licenses accompanying the interoperability tools will continue
in perpetuity. That is, the software which worked on July 31 will
continue to work on August 2. There are no expiration dates or time
bombs built into the tools. While binary compatibility is an important
goal of Digital UNIX, we cannot guarantee that the currently shipping
software will work with all future releases of Digital UNIX.
3) The licenses remain free. You will never need to buy any licenses
for the tools on the CD-ROM unless you choose to upgrade them to a more
recent release.
4) You may choose to buy additional interoperability tools from Boston
Business Computing and Sector 7. You will have to buy licenses for these
tools.
5) Please continue to use the tools with our compliments.
Although the contract runs until August, it is probably only safe to assume
that the existing CD-ROM will ship with new Digital UNIX operating system
orders placed by June 30. Digital will honor its commitment to ship the
existing interoperability tools CD-ROM through August 1, though the method
of shipment may change. There will be a new offer beginning July 1. We
have begun to review the CD-ROM contents and licensing options for the new
offer.
All parties are pleased with the response they have seen to the existing
offer. In choosing a strategy for the future, it would help us to know
how many sites are taking advantage of these tools and about how many users
per site find them helpful. If you would like us to continue this offer,
or if the offer would be useful to you even if there were some limitations
or fee involved, _please_ let us know. Digital and its partners are working
hard for our customers.
-- Richie Holstein
holstein_at_zk3.dec.com
Suzanne LaForge
laforge_at_ics.enet.dec.com
------- end of content --------
Tom
Dr. Thomas P. Blinn, UNIX Software Group, Digital Equipment Corporation
110 Spit Brook Road, MS ZKO3-2/U20 Nashua, New Hampshire 03062-2698
Technology Partnership Engineering Phone: (603) 881-0646
Internet: tpb_at_zk3.dec.com Digital's Easynet: alpha::tpb
Worry kills more people than work because more people worry than work.
My favorite palindrome is: Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas.
-- Phil Agre, pagre_at_ucsd.edu
Opinions expressed herein are my own, and do not necessarily represent
those of my employer or anyone else, living or dead, real or imagined.
Received on Fri Apr 21 1995 - 09:23:40 NZST