[plug] open source concurrent software management

[Denis Brown]

Dear PLUG list members,

Google has not been kind to me... references to cryptographic key serving, 
etc a la OpenKeyserver are not what I'm after.

There are commercial products such as FLEXlm and KeyServer that manage 
application software licenses for concurrent users, typically in a MAC or 
Windows environment.   The idea being that N copies of a license are 
purchased and the software, slightly modified by KeyServer for example, is 
installed on M PCs, where N < M    So you might have an AutoCAD style 
application and buy a five-user license, for example, to be shared among 
more than five users.

Thus the first N people wanting to use the software application (eg 
AutoCAD) get access.   For the N+1'th and above person a message arrives 
saying "no more licenses are avaialble at this time, please try later" or 
similar.

Solutions such as "use Open Source application software (eg not AutoCAD)" 
will not fly in this environment.   By the way, the application is not 
AutoCAD I am simply using that as an example!

If necessary we'll buy KeyServer but I think this is an ideal opportunity 
to expose the benefits of Open Source and/or Linux in an otherwise 
Windows-entrenched environment.   For example a small Linux machine could 
run the license server.

TIA,
Denis