[plug] open source concurrent software management

[Craig Ringer]

Denis Brown wrote:
> 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 OS
> 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.

Is this something that is intended to enforce a license restriction not 
offered directly by the application (ie the app  would let you run as 
many copies as you want, but you're only licensed for 10 and want to 
enforce that limit for users)?

If so, (a) I find the thought of intentionally introducing an 
unnecessary point of failure in the network very unpleasant, and (b) 
I've never heard of any free or open source tool to do that. It would 
seem ... bizarre.

Have you asked the vendors of the products you've mentioned if they 
support Linux servers? It seems that FlexLM, at least, does or has done 
(see, eg, http://www.artwork.com/support/flexlm/index2.htm from Google). 
Then again, it sounds like FlexLM is licensed by each application vendor 
  to produce a custom version for their software.

If you're looking for an application-specific license server, ie if it's 
an application enforced limit a-la Quark and the Adobe apps, you'll need 
to speak to the application vendor. Many vendors actually SELL the 
license server, despite the fact that its only purpose is to limit what 
you can do and introduce another point of failure in your network.

> 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.

OK, so you're looking for a $0 clone of one of these products to save 
some cash? Or are you looking for a not-necessarily-zero-cost service 
that'll run on Linux? I find it rather hard to determine from your 
rather vague email what exactly you're looking for.

--
Craig Ringer