NI Software Licensing

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Recent discussions on the Info-LabVIEW mailing list prompted a request to initiate a thread here for further discuss and to accumulate opinions on this topic. I've also attached a POLL to this message so you can vote on several licensing options. Feel free to vote or just reply to this topic with your opinion.

The first email on the Info-LabVIEW mailing list that started this discussion is attached:

Official information on NI Licensing can be found on NI's website here:

ni.com/license

In a response to my TestStand question, Otto Dalmandy mentioned following:

(Begin Otto's Remarks)

LICENSING:

Other bothersome issues include NI's volume license manager. Each TestStand development system must have a unique software key that is obtained from NI's volume license manager utility of from NI itself. The TestStand development system will not run without it. If you use the utility, you must

install it on a PC, server, or whatever, along with a license file provided by NI. This license file determines your license usage and it is given back to NI at the end of your license period. You can even 'borrow' licenses you haven't purchased and NI will send you a bill for your extra license usage. (Imagine getting a bill for unbudgeted license use, after you've already had

it for a year) If you don't want to install and administer the license manager software, you can go to NI directly for each license. In any event, anytime you want to install, uninstall, or move licenses around, you have to

deal with these licensing issues (not very enjoyable when you are in the middle of a production floor in a different country trying to restore a system crash).

WARNING TO ALL: I dread the day when NI attempts to force this license manager on LV users as well.

(End Otto's Remarks)

I had a meeting with NI sales reps yesterday and I mentioned Otto's remarks.  Their response was the LabVIEW is the only NI software product not using the license manager and to expect that future versions will use it.

At my company we have enough licenses to be legal, but I can see where this will be a hassle.  There are times when I need to transfer my license between computers temporarily and they will not have network access for license sharing. The only easy solution is to buy a PDS or FDS for each new test system AND yearly subscriptions! That would really add up!

I also wonder how this will effect the OpenG community.  How many of them are using their work license at home for developing those cool tools?

I want NI to be profitable and continue to have money for improving LabVIEW, but I don't want this headache! If illegal use of LabVIEW is a real problem, are there other alternatives? How about an option to regulate licenses with a USB dongle?

Thanks for reading this long rant. I think it would be good if the user community voiced there concerns now before it's too late.

Alan Gleichman

[Michael Aivaliotis]

I'm going to add some posts from the mailing list into this thread for completeness:

Hi all,

To correct some misunderstandings it may be wise to once in a wile read through the licensing's terms ( the "annoying text" than an install starts up that usually just being accepted without reading). In those it is stated legal to use one copy of the work licence at home! The volume license tool also supports this and it also supports not networked PC's. Just check out a license and get a license file to put as a replacement to the license file on that home or not networked PC.

Personally I'm not happy to use any dongles or other hardware things to hook up to test systems that maybe don't have that options or test people that misplace their dongles. Been there---done that.

Regards

//Lennart Berlin

If you can simply generate a license file, how do you check the license back in?  How does the license manager know that it has been removed from the other computer that is not on the network?  I don't like the idea of a dongle either, but it sounded like a better option than having to call in to NI every time I wanted to move a license.

Alan Gleichman

I recently got aware of this new regime that NI is going to use on the licensing,

to my big frustration, and I have also been surprised that this not have been

an issue in this forum either, before now. Maybe many like me, are not completely aware on what's going on, and how it

might effect them.

I have experience on this kind of licensing from before. We are using some

analytical instraumentation in our labs, with software that has been using this

kind of licensing strategy for years. And it has not been easy to live with,

not at all. And that is a fact, even though we are paying for all the licenses

we need, all the time. The problems are related to:

- when a computer (HD) crash, basically we have to get a new license from the vendor,

cause the license is completely locked to the computer

- when one of our customers receives a computer from us, renames it for his own network,

the license doesn't work any more, cause it is also tied to the computer name

- to activate a license, the computer either needs access to network, or we have to run

back and forth with a diskette

- to activate a new license, the vendor in Calefornia has to manually confirm,

so we have to wait until next day

- etc, etc, etc

Of course, this is not how NI plans it for their stuff to work. But as they say, I have been there and seen how this can work.

A potential problem is that I have installed my LabVIEW program on several computers simultaneously. This is because I work full-time with LabVIEW

programming and automation, and I do NOT work on only one project at a time.

However, the license is only used on one machine at the time, cause I cannot

work on more than one computer at the time.  So if NI should make this impossible

for me in the future, and I would have to uninstall/reinstall the LabVIEW software

every time I move from one computer to another, it would cause a hopeless situation.

I really hope that's not their intention.

I would strongly support the idea of a dongle, to enable jumping from one PC to

another without having to uninstall/reinstall (or unactivate/activate via network) the software.

The software company that I mentioned above, have after several years of customer complaints

also reached the same conclusion. A year ago they opened for the possibility to

use a USB dongle.

I hope my fear here is based on ignorance, and not realities. Martin 

******

Hi all,

I noticed several recent questions regarding NI software licensing and NI

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Some more posts:

I have always thought that NI was one of the 7 wonders of the world. A National treasure (pun intended). But it's always the way: If there's a product I like at the grocery store, a TV show I like or a gadget that's useful and well designed, it gets discontinued immediately. I had always looked to NI as one of the bright spots in the corporate world, but the MS-ification of NI would just be part of this dismal trend. Like that New Yorker cartoon of the officious guy at his desk talking into the the phone: "We're all done. There's nothing left to bastardize."

Next up, look for a long, impenetrable phone menu when you call NI, instead of the nice people that actually answer the phone.

Perhaps if NI had nothing by LV to sell, maybe one could understand. But I've bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of their boards. I'd be very mad if this licensing scheme were implemented.

I will stay at 7.1 for a very long time if it happens.

David

I guess I'll add my 2 cents.

Let me say that I appreciate the wonderful products that NI provides. They make my job a lot easier. I don't even want to think about trying to do my job by register-programming VXI boards in C. Yuk! LabVIEW with PCI, PXI, Fieldpoint, etc. is worth the money we send to NI.

Dr. T has a vision of LabVIEW running on every engineer's computer. With that goal in mind, it makes sense to takes steps to insure NI doesn't get taken advantage of. However, I'm not sure the marketing/licensing department realizes that the current scheme will be a hindrance to the way LabVIEW is used in a lot of companies. I'm hopeful that we are looking at the first try, not the final say.

In the hopes that seeing how LabVIEW is used within different companies will help NI tune their licensing strategy, I'll describe the situation at our company.

We have 3 people that know how to program in LabVIEW. We also have 3 Developer Suite licenses that are renewed every year for about US$4000. Because each developer suite comes with App Builder, we could, in theory, do all our development on our main computers (company issued laptops) and install executables on the test computers (~20 laptops that get shipped around the country and ~5 desktops in our on-site test rigs). I say 'in theory' because it is hard (sometimes impossible) to write or debug programs without using the exact same hardware. How do I troubleshoot a program that uses PCI-4472 cards with my laptop that doesn't have PCI slots? I can't even run the program without getting DAQ errors.

So, we are currently left with 3 options (2 legal and moral, 1 illegal but still moral[my opinion])

Option 1: Do most of our programming on our main computers. When we get to the point that we need to use the real hardware: -uninstall from our main computer, -install on test machine, -Call NI for activation (if business hours) or find a networked computer somewhere and use web activation,

-finish the problem, -build into an executable, -uninstall from test computer, -go back to desk and start installation on main computer, -get call that something isn't working, -force quit installation on main computer, -install on test machine, -Call NI for .....

Option 2: Buy debug licenses and install LabVIEW on our test machines. Ok, I may be wrong, but wouldn't you need a debug license for each machine? If our company only had one debug license we would have to do the install/uninstall dance every time there is a problem on a different machine. So it isn't any different from option 1, just more expensive. Telling my boss we need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on debug licenses won't work either. He'll just tell us to use option 3.

Option 3: Install LabVIEW on every computer. We have a LabVIEW license and App Builder for every person who knows LabVIEW, so it isn't like the company buys one copy of LabVIEW for 20 developers. From the outside, you can't tell if the company is doing Option 1 or 3. Both have the same result, NI gets the same amount of money and the same programs get written. Internally, option 3 is A LOT less grief for the LabVIEW developers (you know, the people that constantly get the company to buy lots of NI products)

I'll refrain from disclosing the option our company has picked.

So, here is the problem that I see. Traditional programs, say a word processor, can be developed on a single development machine without needing to worry too much about the machine it will eventually run on. So seat-based licensing for MS Visual Studio isn't a hindrance for traditional developers. But LabVIEW is different for a large number of programs it is used to create. The NI licensing scheme looks to tackle to problem of 20 engineers sitting in a room programming LabVIEW while only buying one license. I'm not arguing that this won't be a problem for NI once they reach their goal of being a standard program for all engineers. But LabVIEW isn't like Excel yet. The company can see why paying for Excel on every computer makes sense, everyone in the company uses it. But LabVIEW is (currently) limited to only those who have been trained for it. Our admin isn't going to use it. Our managers aren't going to use it. There are exactly 3 of us at our company that are going to use it. More to the point, the maximum number of copies of LabVIEW that will be used for development will never exceed 3 at any time. There may be more copies running VI's, but that is not different then using App Builder. So why do we need to buy more than 3 development environments? That is what my manager will ask. After explaining the options, most will probably pick option 1 or 3 from the list above.

So what are the solutions? I think we'd all like to see LabVIEW as a free program, but I don't think that will happen. If LabVIEW was a $200 program, there would be less complaining about licensing. Maybe an increase in hardware prices to offset a reduction in LabIEW prices.

Assuming the pricing isn't going to change significantly, I'd like NI to change from a seat-base license to a user- or floating-based license with the option of checking a license out to a hardware dongle. I know Melissa listed some issues with hardware dongles, but hear me out. I would install LabVIEW, a bunch of toolsets, LVRT, TestStand, etc. on any computer I liked. Without a valid license, they would all run in evaluation/demo mode. How does a computer get an NI license? Several ways. 1) Just as the current system, a license could be assigned to a single computer. Anyone sitting down at that computer can start programming. The current system supports computers that are offline (use floppy/usb drive to transfer license file)

2) The license manager would also have the ability to assign licenses to people. So, I could sit down at any computer on the network, launch LabVIEW, enter my user name and password and have all my licenses available (I have LabVIEW, Signal Processing Toolkit, Octave Analysis Toolkit, LabVIEW Real-time. My co-worker Mike has LabVIEW and Teststand). 3) The license manager can also have floating licenses. My manager (who isn't assigned any licenses) sits down at a computer that doesn't have a LabVIEW license. If there are any LabVIEW licenses not being used, he can start using LabVIEW, otherwise it is just a demo. 4) Assign license to a dongle. Current dongles have space to record what kind of license is valid. The license manager would allow licenses to be assigned to a dongle and then program the dongle accordingly. Dongles also allow you to set a time limit. The default could be 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, the dongle stops working unless you go back to the license manager and re-assign. This way, if a dongle is lost the license is lost for, at most, 2 weeks. I could assign all my license to a dongle, walk down to one of our test rigs (offline) and start programming/troubleshooting. I could then walk to another test rig and do the same thing. With this method, NI could sell us as many dongles as we wanted at $20 each. If I was silly enough to misplace a dongle with active licenses, I'd be without LabVIEW for up to 2 weeks before my licenses became available again. Of course, in my scenario, a 1 day expiration would probably have been the safest.

Okay, this message went on a lot longer than I planned. Sorry.

Patrick Lavezza

I think NI should get paid for every development seat of LV that I use, which at a given moment is one seat.

I think NI should try to make that as easy as possible.  Any other solution means I am less productive and more expensive. 

My work situation is similar to the majority of places that use LV (bullstuff, but I will throw it out there anyway).  There are just a two people that develop with LV here, clearly LV would be more effective, productive, and valuable if we could use it for development on many different machines.  Only 2 seats would ever be in use (unless a built app is made, and we did pay for the app builder).  Were we to install development LV on 6 machines, even then only two would ever be in use. It is a major problem, as has been mentioned, that there can be only 2 installations at a given time.

It would be very useful for us to have more than 2 installation of the development software.  But, NI should not get paid for installations that are not in use.  We cannot afford to pay for that, there is no gain on our part; it is silly to think that we should.

There is no intention on our part to avoid paying NI for LV.  We have now and will always have a seat for every person that is using LV.  NI should support our honest use of their products in the most productive ways possible.  The purpose of the licensing agreement is to protect NI from dishonest use of the software.  That is great, but the final solution should support the honest users, not handicap them.

I don't think I care what other situations make licensing complicated. Because it is NI's job, not mine, to figure out how to make me as productive as possible in this regard.  Perhaps there needs to be different levels of licensing.  Fine.  But we still only use two installations of LV at a time and we can't afford to pay for more than that.  Were there an equal system, with which I could be equally productive, and I did not have the hassle of this licensing system, I would be all over it.  That such a thing does not exist should not mean that NI can safely gouge for money in this way.  NI has a pretty solid niche, but there is real danger in losing the good will of customers. As it stands the licensing agreement is a problem and it makes the software, and thus indirectly their hardware, less valuable.

Actually, if the field engineer paid any attention to us at all, then they would know we aren't screwing with them.  It would be a simple matter to award good customers with a trustee licensing agreement.  Hey NI, come on over and we will give you a tour.  We are auditng installed software for Sarbanes-Oxley now, maybe there could be some sort of certification, and then open use of the development package is awarded for registerd users - at no extra cost.

An aside:  Frankly, being able to install LV at home is a trap I do not want to fall into.  That is a useless "feature' that everyone should reject.  But then I have the luxury of not being compensated for time spent telecommuting.

Regards,

Mike Ross

Something to ponder.

AutoDesk, the makers of AutoCAD has a nice licensing system.

We have one license for AutoCAD LT. When you install AutoCAD, it also installs what they call a Portable License Manager. This allows you to install the entire application on as many machines as you want, but only use it on one at a time.

It works like this. On the first installation, you register with AutoDesk and they give you an activation key. You can then install AutoCAD on other machines and skip the activation, which puts AutoCAD in demo mode for a certain number days, after which it will not start. When you want to use AutoCAD on another machine, you export the license from the active machine using the utility. This creates a file that you can now move however you need to, to the other machine and import it using the utility. AutoCAD is now fully functional on the new machine, and the old one has a grace period of a few days to continue use until it won't allow you to start it, unless you get the license back.

This whole process takes just a couple minutes. No uninstalling required.

Edwin Dickens - Certified LabVIEW Developer

I am far from an expert (or even terribly knowledgable) about NI licensing, current or proposed.  I'm just an academic user. That said, what about the following license scheme:

A "software dongle" consisting of a license key which is exported by the install process for LabVIEW and then encrypted with a passphrase from the licensed user.  Therefore, the licensed user must posess not only the software key but also their own passphrase.  The user is responsible for policing proper access to the passphrase, and things go on from there.  The keys are portable on USB keychain drives (etc) or can be installed on HDs but still require the authorized user's passphrase to decrypt for authentication.  This eliminates the need to install/reinstall etc.  Install once, and the software isn't active without the encrypted CD key and the passphrase to decrypt it.

If you want another authorized user, you go to NI's website, buy another license, tell them your install CD's ID number, and that number, combined with a new user passphrase, becomes a second floating access to LabVIEW.  Available immediately over the web or by phone.  You buy one license for each developer who will need access to the software and the license (while owned by the company) "belongs" to the authorized user.  That way, any install from the company "master CD" is accessible by a licensed user of that CD.

That is, each CD has a unique ID number.  That number is used (with some sort of algorithm that is *not* hardware dependent) to create a key which will work on *any* install from that CD. The key is then encrypted using a public/private key type system using the user's passphrase.  You must provide the encrypted key and the passphrase to decrypt it in order to run LabVIEW installs made from the master CD.

Each time a new license is created, the encrypted key is attached to NI's registry for that CD ID number.  Therefore, NI could police piracy by identifying whose install has become "publicly" available. By piracy, I mean instances where someone has made their key and install CD available to the public for sale.

Just my $0.02.

Charley

[Grampa_of_Oliva_n_Eden]

Some more posts:

3027[/snapback]

A license manager would be OK, but would prefer to have more options for moving licenses between computers, such as dongle, locally generated key code (licensefile) or floating license

I would have selected option #3 shown above (i went for "other") if it only invloved a file.

USB support can hurt determinism in RT and traditional serial ports are disappearing from machines these days.

RE: some of the posts saying that NI hardware always included in LV apps.

I have to admit that I am part of the problem with this line of thinking. It is not unusual for my applications to be completely NI hardware free. This is not my intention (I try to sell NI stuff). Many of my customers come to me after they have purchased a pile of non-NI stuff and need it integrated.

Ben

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

I disagree with NI's proposed liscening. It could be a real hindrance to the typical (at least myself) developer/deployer of applications within my company. Consider the following scenario, with a single employee in the company who does LV programming.

1. Desktop PC is used for day to day operations, connected to the network and internet. LabView is loaded primary to open/download sample code off the internet for potential project development, gain further knowledge of LV, etc. PC is not used to develop potential applications. Could do without LV here (use LV player?), but would really restrict my knowledge of LV.

2. A general development networked PC, may or may not be connected to internet. LV is loaded and PC has DAQ and Framegrabber cards loaded. Used for tinkering/experimentaion/quick minor application testing.

3. A PC dedicated to a project, in the end it will be networked but no access to internet. LV is initially loaded, project coded and debugged over several weeks/months. Especially critical to have LV on it due to custom instrument communication and near project completion when system is delivered to production floor for quick bug fixes. An exe is built with App Builder. When determined that program is reliable and stable, LV is then removed from the system. Minor future updates usually can be coded on the general devel PC above.

It would be a real hassle to mess with registration/deregistration or install/remove every time one has to shuffle between systems. LV code is never being developed at the same time on more than one machine.

Is there a problem with illegitimate copies of LV being given away? I assume there would be. Never personally have, do not know of anyone who could or would use it. Do not have LV at home, get enough of it at work. Have used NI SW and HW over the past 10 years, and have purchased ~$60000 worth of it. I would hope NI would allow leniency for flexibility for long-time and loyal users of their products.

Just my ramblings on the topic... :beer: :beer: :beer:

[BienEntendu]

Another great idea for breaking the enjoyment of working on a wonderful product and falling in a Micro...stuff world !

we are a really small company : 1 single person !

labview is installed on 3 machines 1 dual G5, 1 G4 Titanium and 1 on an old iMac

70% of the time, i am alone working and testing on theses three machines

30% of the time, i must admit i infringe the licensing scheme when inviting an intern (usually not paid)

but during this period, i form a novice to a good (i try to) labview developper.

1) i won't be able to pay two licenses to be able to form an intern which i can't even pay !

2) i won't ask every hour the authorisation to test on another machine

perhaps one solution : divide the cost of LV by (at least) 2. i am sure it will be more used around the world and more profitable for NI than trying to fall into this new world of DRM which just pusch users to find a way to crack softwares (/music ...) when they just want to be quiet paying the right price for a good product which is sold thousands of time

[PJM_labview]

Following is another official answer by NI:

I

[akamu]

Received this a short time ago. Passing on for those following the licensing thread... :-)

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Sent by: Shannon.Rariden@ni.com

Date: 12/29/2004 04:09 PM

Subject: Required Patch for National Instruments Software Licensed through NI Volume License Manager

Dear NI VLM Administrator,

We want to inform you about a required patch that National Instruments

recently made available for all NI Volume License Manager (NI VLM) users

running LabWindows/CVI 7.1, DIAdem 9.1, TestStand 3.1, or TestStand 3.1

deployments. You and/or your users can download this patch from:

KnowledgeBase 3FSB1T6E: Application Software Programs Licensed Through NI

VLM Stop Running When Disconnected From the Server for More Than 12 Minutes

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch...5E?OpenDocument

What Is Affected: Any computer running LabWindows/CVI 7.1, and/or DIAdem

9.1, and/or TestStand 3.1, including deployed systems, which checks out

licenses over the network via the NI Volume License Manager is affected.

What Happens: If the network goes down for more than 12 consecutive

minutes, any active instance of LabWindows/CVI, DIAdem, or TestStand,

including deployed TestStand systems, will immediately stop running and

shut down.

Note: This is especially important for deployed TestStand systems that get

their license from NI VLM over a network.

Necessary Actions: To correct the behavior, you must install the patch on

all computers administered by NI VLM, running LabWindows/CVI 7.1, DIAdem

9.1, or NI TestStand 3.1. You can do this in several different ways:

[lorinkundert]

I have used LabVIEW for many years and had been behind the movement at Motorola to bring it in back in 1996, Unfortunately I have no choice but to design a new system or stay with LabVIEW 7.1.1. People on this forum have touched upon dropping NI or getting involved in legal activity, I have had to choose not to purchase any of the SSP products currently under my control, last count 22; This may not be substantial enough for NI to take notice but I think that many more consultants and companies will follow suit.

[rkehn]

OK here we go

[lorinkundert]

It is not too difficult to work around NI's latest licensing scheme, They use the volume serial number of the hard drive that you activated the software on, all you have to do is copy the license file to a machine you want to transfer the software to and use one of many utilities available that change volume serial numbers to the one you want so they match. I have had no problem with it and it makes recovery from a crash simple.

To the person who is quoted as saying to let the NI people go through their activation process when they are out doing demo's all day. They use a master license file that removes the activation requirement.

Hopes this helps you continue with the legal use of the software you paid for.