*RANT* Ridiculous EDA software "user license agreements"?

[Kai Harrekilde-Petersen]

"mx" <[email protected]> escribió en el mensaje


and could somebody tell why's that? the furniture guys dont expect the new
owner of the company to pay them again for the furniture sitting in the
offices, why would we have to pay then to the software guys?

You *buy* furniture, you *license* software. The devil is in the
lawyers^Wdetails.

Yup, that's my experience as well.

Regards,


Kai

 

[roller]

You *buy* furniture, you *license* software. The devil is in the
lawyers^Wdetails.

(i know it'd be proably off-topic, mostly naive and stupid question, but
i've never cared about licenses before so i dont know, i hope this will
enlight me)

yeah ok, but why it has to be that way? i mean, it's not even like if they
were giving you upgrades or anything!
besides, again, why cant we own software? who came up with the idea that
software, which is a "tool" has to be licensed instead of bought when i can
go to a hardware store and get any "tool" and do whatever i want with it. To
have a more related example, Intel doesnt care what i do with PCs.
It's like i buy a PC with WinXP preinstalled (which most of the time you
dont even get the chance to choose if you want it or not; and if they sell
it without, you dont even get a discount), and then if i sell it, i have to
sell it without the OS?
what's the deal with that? a phone has software inside, and if i sell it, i
sell it with the software, i wont go around erasing it do i?
i just dont understand why it has to be different.

 

[svenn.are]

Actually.. I believe they charge you a license fee if you move sites.. for
their time and effort of course

They even charge if you move from one license server to another when
they are in the same location. Rehosting they call it, and it cost
money even if you have maintenance contract. Milage may of cource
vary.

It is amazing that noone from the vendors have even tried to make
their policies clear. There are enough of them listening on these
channels. Working off-site is very easy with the flexlm license system
since you only need to transfer the licensing info. Most programs
check out license when they start, and then keep it, which is very
convenient on a low bandwidth line like a DSL or modem line.

Working off-site could save a lot of jobs since you don't need to move
where the engineers are, have the engineers telecommute to you.

Just my opinion on the topic.

 

[Blackie Beard]

I'm very happy w/ Verilogger. I've tried a lot of other stuff.
ModelSim sucks dongle. Too many menus and submenus
and too many things you just have to know about it. And
even then it won't give meaningful debug messages at times.
And since you're an ASIC engineer, you won't have to do
any searching for the free license file, so you can keep
those trojans and adwares off your system. It has all the
bugs worked out, and has all the features you need, and
none of the ones you don't.

BB

 

[Thomas Stanka]

(c) If the customer is acquired (purchased) by another company, the
EDA-software is non-transferrable. Thankfully within industry, the
standard practice is for the vendor to permit the ownership transfer, as
long as the new owner continues to pay the maintenance/support contract
obligations.

Synopsys didn't allow us to transfer the license, while our company
was aquired, until we made clear, that this would be a good point to
get rid of all Synopsys software in our company. And in fact it was an
important point for the next software purchase that we prefer any
other company when two tools seem technically equivalent.

bye Thomas

 

[Thomas Stanka]

/RANT ON

1) Modelsim/PE "Personal Edition" -- *exact* same license agreement
as their premiere Modelsim/SE. [...]
At a minimum,
someone needs to challenge their ridiculous license agreement
for products aimed at 'personal' use.

(Disclaimer: IANAL)
Site wide licenses definitely are licenses and the two companies
involved can agree basically on any ridiculous licensee term that they
can up with, but this might not be the case for a personal edition.

For example if you can manage to buy modelsim PE in a shop or order it
online without clicking through the license agreement than you just
made a regular purchase and there is no license agreement involved.
Even if you click through the license agreement it is very doubtfull
that it is valid. Basically a purchase is a purchase not matter what
you call it and the first sale doctrine applies, which means that the
rightholder can not control the use of an item after the first sale.

Be careful. License law is a very hard field, especially if different
countries are involved. If you download your software, there might be
the law of two countries involved, which complicates everything.

In Germany your are right that you could ignore any license agreement,
when purchasing a standard programm (enter the shop and buy a CD). But
you have to deal with the license agreement, when purchasing a license
(or get it free) by downloading a software.

These are two different things, which seem very similar.

bye Thomas

 

[Kolja Sulimma]

In Germany your are right that you could ignore any license agreement,

when purchasing a standard programm (enter the shop and buy a CD). But
you have to deal with the license agreement, when purchasing a license
(or get it free) by downloading a software.

These are two different things, which seem very similar.

Probably not. By downloading you are receiving a single copy of the
software. The process of copying was initialized by the seller. Only
the ownership of that copy is transfered, there is no license for
copying necessary, the transaction can be handled as a purchase.
Also, the buyer probably believes this is a purchase anyway, so that a
license contract is likely to be void.

One could argue that the process of copying is performed by the person
doing the download, but that view has MAJOR implication on copyright
law. Basically it makes P2P downloads legal in many countries. So
don't expect that view to be successful.

Again, IANAL,

Kolja Sulimma

 

[Thomas Stanka]

Probably not. By downloading you are receiving a single copy of the
software. The process of copying was initialized by the seller. Only
the ownership of that copy is transfered, there is no license for
copying necessary, the transaction can be handled as a purchase.
Also, the buyer probably believes this is a purchase anyway, so that a
license contract is likely to be void.

IANAL, too.
German law is not logical in any ways (as most other laws I asume).
Maybe you should google in de.soc.recht.*

In short you can't get ownership on software in Germany, but you can
get ownership on a CD containing software.
For using a software you need the right to use it (Nutzungrecht),
often called license. In Germany you get this license either by
getting owner of a CD containing the software, or by a license
agreement.

bye Thomas

 

[Rene Tschaggelar]

UMMM *NO* the original-poster mentioned somewhere in his rant that
the license terms of Mentor, Cadence, and Synopsys
are *tied* to a physical site. Actually the software license is bound
to 3 specific items:

a) authorized hardware (license node/server)
<AND>
b) physical site (company location, with defined 'distance radius')
<AND>
c) the party/persons/company named on the purchase-order

That's *AND* (not OR.) Change any 1 of the above, and you have to
contact the vendor to renew/re-validate your license. (This doesn't
automatically mean you have to *repurchase* the software...)

(b) Buying a laptop, taking it on the road, and using it to run the
EDA sofware falls under 'running the software outside of the
physical site.' All you've done with your laptop, is place
both the license-server and execution-machine in the same
machine (your laptop), instead of just taking the execution-machine

The physical-site limitation is so restrictive, that technically
speaking, if a customer merely relocates its office more than a
few miles, their software-liense is invalidated. Obvioualy,
no EDA-vendor requires the customer to repurchase the software. They
merely update the license contract with the customer's new (street)
address.

The physical location restriction is completely ridiculus.
Upon further thinking about its implications, one could figure that
the software is almost infinitely crappy. The implications are such
that the user of such a software cannot show it on an exhibition.
All the other limitations are dream world stuff. It cannot be legally
proven that the software was used at home beside the pool even when it
is run by the correct user on the correct machine. Nor can be legally
proven that it was shown to a colleage at whatever location.
IMO, a very obvious way to try to keep the software off the public eyes.

I happend to work once with such kind of software, 40k$ per seat, plus
something per year, and the user interface was such awkward and clumsy,
that I wished the developpers being beaten up for every minute I had to
work with. If such feelings spread too quickly and too openly, the
business would be on the downslope rather quick. Since such software is
usually purchased by people who will never work with it, the employee
on this software has to be eternally gratefull to be able to work with
this software and deliver the expected results.

IMO, such restrictions are an indication for crap to be stayed away from.

Rene

 

[David]

: I am an ASIC engineer who frequently 'takes work home' with me.
: Recently, I began using ssh to remotely login to our company's
: servers to run some Verilog/VHDL simulations. Launching
: sims (from the UNIX command line) is fairly easy and painless,
: but any kind of interactive (GUI) operations are pitifully
: slow over an WAN/internet connection. In the past, I
: haven't needed to do much more than check on running jobs,
: restart them, then logout. Now, I find the need to do some
: interactive debugging work (waveform viewing, code editing,
: etc.)

Look at NX. It what LBX (Low Bandwidth X ) promised, but NX
delivers. Probably not to easy to set yet, but worth a try.

It's easy enough to set up the server (either look at the commercial
version from www.nomachine.com, or google for "freenx" or "nxserver") on
linux, and clients are even easier (download free from nomachine). It is
said to be usable over a modem connection - I have certainly found it
works well over ADSL for most work. It's definitely faster than tightVnc
(which is also okay for many things - and works well for pretending you
are sitting at your office windows desktop).

 

[Paul Muller]

Hello,

1) Modelsim/PE "Personal Edition" -- *exact* same license agreement
as their premiere Modelsim/SE.

"Mentor Graphics
grants to you, subject to payment of appropriate license fees, a
nontransferable, nonexclusive license to use
Software solely: (a) in machine-readable, object-code form; (b) for your
internal business purposes; and (c) on
the computer hardware or at the site for which an applicable license fee
is paid, or as authorized by Mentor
Graphics. A site is restricted to a one-half mile (800 meter) radius."

My understanding of "on the computer hardware or at the site for which
an applicable license fee is paid" is that it can be either used on
different computers at the same site *or* on one computer at different
locations, i.e. a portable computer. Am I wrong?

Paul

 

[Kolja Sulimma]

(c) on
the computer hardware or at the site for which an applicable license fee
is paid, or as authorized by Mentor
Graphics. A site is restricted to a one-half mile (800 meter) radius."

*RIDICULOUS* If I were a design-consultant, and my laptop were
my primary compute platform, how am I supposed to comply with a
'site' radius? By their language, I can't run Modelsim
if I drive more than 0.5mi from my home-residence/business?!?

As someone fluent in Verilog you surely know the meaning of the word
"or", don't you?
So if you license it for a certain computer hardware you can take that
hardware werever you want in full complience with their license.


Seriously:
Your boss can call your distributor and ask them to extend the license
to the company site plus the workplace of one teleworker. This should be
no hassle.

If you purchase or download software at home (e.g. not signing a site
license contract) you perform a purchase instead of licensing the
software and the principle of first sale applies. The manufacturer has
no right to control who runs the software where, as long you there
allways is only a single copy. (Disclaimer: IANAL)

Kolja Sulimma

 

[Phil Tomson]

I am an ASIC engineer who frequently 'takes work home' with me.
Recently, I began using ssh to remotely login to our company's
servers to run some Verilog/VHDL simulations. Launching
sims (from the UNIX command line) is fairly easy and painless,
but any kind of interactive (GUI) operations are pitifully
slow over an WAN/internet connection. In the past, I
haven't needed to do much more than check on running jobs,
restart them, then logout. Now, I find the need to do some
interactive debugging work (waveform viewing, code editing,
etc.)

There are free waveform viewers (gtkwave). Editing code seems like it
could be done quite easily without using any vendor tools (gvim works
great).

Since I can't use the company's tools on *my* home machine, I
started investigating various low-cost Verilog simulators to run
under Windows. (I can't use Icarus because it fails to compile a
lot of our company's Verilog RTL.)

submit bugs to the Icarus developers.

Any comments?
What pisses me off the most, is those Cadence/Synopsys/Mentor
"travelling salesman." They come to our company-site, armed with
laptops and LCD-projectors -- then show off how a small x86-laptop
now runs jobs faster than a low-end Sun/IBM RISC workstation.
These EDAs need to be sued for false advertising. At a minimum,
someone needs to challenge their ridiculous license agreement
for products aimed at 'personal' use.

For now, I've simply told my supervisor 'project schedule slip.'
And I've given up on doing real work at home (now mostly just
catching on documentation and inline RTL-comments.)

The main courses of action that come to mind:
1) setup things so that you do not need to use a GUI to debug (lots of
assertions & printing of values - but make it easy to remove them from
code before synthesis). If possible use open source waveform viewers
like gtkwave.

2) help the open source tools to improve. Icarus for Verilog is already
quite good, but if you're seeing problems you should report them. As I
said above, submit bug reports. The only way you're going to get around
restrictive licenses is to use applications which are not bound by
restrictive licenses (open source). They may not always be ready for use
at work, but they'll often be OK for work at home.

Phil

 

[Phil Tomson]

I'm not sure what you are trying to suggest. If you mean he should run
the programs on an office machine using interface software from home,
that is what he wants to get away from. If you are talking about
checking out the license over the network, that is what is forbidden by
the license.

What are you suggesting?

But with VPN the license is still checked out only on the machine at
work. VPN only allows you to see your work desktop at home, so
technically it's probably legal since the tool is not actually running on
your home machine at all (your home machine only acts as a terminal).

Phil

 

[Hans]

Probably mentioned somewhere in this tread, but perhaps you can convince
your company to convert one of the floating licenses to a dongle one? If you
go down this road make sure the dongle is insured since the vendor might ask
you to purchase the software again if you loose it. If the vendor is using
Flexlm you might want to look into the lmborrow feature. I am not 100% sure
how it works but it looks like you can take a license token away from the
license server for a duration.

Hans.
www.ht-lab.com

 

[MikeJ]

I have a company modelsim dongle, which I have always assumed I can move
around and use on any machine the dongle is currently plugged into. By
definition I can only be using it in one place at a time ...

Surely this is allowed ??

/MikeJ

p.s. sorry I mailed you Hans, hit the wrong button

 

[Hans]

Hi Mike,

I assume when you say move around you mean taking it home? I just checked my
Modelsim license and the 800m clause applies to any license, nodelocked or
floating. However, I would say that as long as your Modelsim dongle is
nodelocked, insured and you work for the company that paid for the license
than I don't believe Mentor will complain about a license breach if you take
it home. I can be 100% sure though since I don't work for Mentor but I
assume they have more important things to do

Regards,
Hans.
www.ht-lab.com

 

[marcus.harnisch]

I am an ASIC engineer who frequently 'takes work home' with me.
Recently, I began using ssh to remotely login to our company's
servers to run some Verilog/VHDL simulations. Launching
sims (from the UNIX command line) is fairly easy and painless,
but any kind of interactive (GUI) operations are pitifully
slow over an WAN/internet connection. In the past, I
haven't needed to do much more than check on running jobs,
restart them, then logout. Now, I find the need to do some
interactive debugging work (waveform viewing, code editing,
etc.)

Since you are using UNIX-based hosts, you might want to consider
looking into NX (http://www.nomachine.com). I have used it for the
exact same purpose for years (it wasn't actually called NX back
then).

For quite some time I had to use a connection going from the local
office in Boston,MA to Milpitas,CA and back to Boston. No issues here.

Hope that helps,
Marcus