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

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license_rant_master

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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.)

So I thought, ok, I'll just install Linux at home and check
out a license remotely from the company. The system
administrator told me "NO!" this is forbidden, due to the license
agreements of just about every EDA-tool vendor. According to the
language/legalese of the license-agreement, a license 'seat'
is tied to a physical location called 'site.'

There are minor differences among the 'site-radius', but the
end-result is the same ... no executing the tool on hardware outside
of the radius:

Cadence : 1 mile radius within licensed machine-node
(Sysadmin told me this...didn't double-check myself.)

Synopsys: 5 mile radius within licensed machine-node
(couldn't find the agreement, but found this on Solvnet.)

Model/Mentor: 800 meter (0.5mi) radius within licensed machine-node
(Download the user's manual for any Modelsim product.)

....

At this point, I think, well alright, most of these EDA tools
are $100,000 USD and up, so it's reasonable for the vendor to impose
these terms. EDA companies don't want 1 company buying a huge site-wide
(100+) licenses, then randomly 'renting' them out over the internet.

I mentally used this analogy to convince myself this is ok:
I buy broadband internet service for my household.
It's "unlimited" for my household -- not my neightborhood or someone
driving by on a WiFi laptop. Fair enough...

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.)

/RANT ON

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."

*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?!?

2) ok, so next I move on to Cadence's "Verilog Desktop"

Wow, same story -- the language of their license agreement brings
me to the same conclusion. Install on laptop -- automatic
non-compliance with their agreement (unless you 'lock down' the
laptop with a 1-mile chain.) Funny how their salesman now use
x86-laptops for nearly *all* customer-site product demos?!?

3) I may investigate Verilogger Pro or Simucad, but I figure why bother.
I'll probably just end up getting angrier...

....

/RANT OFF

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.)
 
On Thu, 01 Jul 2004 04:46:42 GMT, license_rant_master
<none@nowhere.net> wrote:

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.)
Click to expand...
Have you tried tightVNC on maximum compression? The lossy compression
leads to some visible artefacts on bitmaps (e.g. your modelsim wave
window), but it's a lot better than anything else I've tried over a
voice band modem.

http://www.tightvnc.org/

Regards,
Allan.
 
In comp.arch.fpga license_rant_master <none@nowhere.net> wrote:
: 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.

Bye
--
Uwe Bonnes bon@elektron.ikp.physik.tu-darmstadt.de

Institut fuer Kernphysik Schlossgartenstrasse 9 64289 Darmstadt
--------- Tel. 06151 162516 -------- Fax. 06151 164321 ----------
 
license_rant_master <none@nowhere.net> writes:

I am an ASIC engineer who frequently 'takes work home' with me.
... According to the
language/legalese of the license-agreement, a license 'seat'
is tied to a physical location called 'site.'
Click to expand...
Here's a hint: like a lot of things in life, these restrictions are negotiable
if you are a big enough customer.
 
In article <SGMEc.2916$486.1576@newssvr25.news.prodigy.com>,
license_rant_master <none@nowhere.net> wrote:

According to the language/legalese of the license-agreement, a license
'seat' is tied to a physical location called 'site.'
Click to expand...
I've heard that this is to prevent on-site consultants from sharing their
personal license (or more likely, the consultant's company's license) with
their customer. Otherwise only ASIC consulting companys would be buying the
$500K licenses.

--
/* jhallen@world.std.com (192.74.137.5) */ /* Joseph H. Allen */
int a[1817];main(z,p,q,r){for(p=80;q+p-80;p-=2*a[p])for(z=9;z--;)q=3&(r=time(0)
+r*57)/7,q=q?q-1?q-2?1-p%79?-1:0:p%79-77?1:0:p<1659?79:0:p>158?-79:0,q?!a[p+q*2
]?a[p+=a[p+=q]=q]=q:0:0;for(;q++-1817;)printf(q%79?"%c":"%c\n"," #"[!a[q-1]]);}
 
Joseph H Allen wrote:
In article <SGMEc.2916$486.1576@newssvr25.news.prodigy.com>,
license_rant_master <none@nowhere.net> wrote:


According to the language/legalese of the license-agreement, a license
'seat' is tied to a physical location called 'site.'


I've heard that this is to prevent on-site consultants from sharing their
personal license (or more likely, the consultant's company's license) with
their customer. Otherwise only ASIC consulting companys would be buying the
$500K licenses.
Click to expand...
or an america and european company could get together and share licenses, with
a 7-8-9 hour time difference they wouldn't need the licenses at the same time

I think some companies (big ones) can a special license, I know one that share
worldwide and I would think they have a pool of licenses

-Lasse
 
license_rant_master wrote:
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
[SNIP]
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.)
Click to expand...

I'm glad you did speak up ! I wish more people would -
preferably not anonymously ...

Here is another free Verilog simulator, you might find
it will run the more serious verilog jobs:

http://www.pragmatic-c.com/gpl-cver/

Runs on Linux ...

Good Luck !

Best Regards,
rudi
========================================================
ASICS.ws ::: Solutions for your ASIC/FPGA needs :::
...............::: FPGAs * Full Custom ICs * IP Cores :::
FREE IP Cores -> http://www.asics.ws/ <- FREE EDA Tools
 
The whole is solved by a notebook being the work machine at
the expense of reduced performance.

But yes, the whole is a bit silly.

Rene


license_rant_master wrote:
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.)

So I thought, ok, I'll just install Linux at home and check
out a license remotely from the company. The system
administrator told me "NO!" this is forbidden, due to the license
agreements of just about every EDA-tool vendor. According to the
language/legalese of the license-agreement, a license 'seat'
is tied to a physical location called 'site.'

There are minor differences among the 'site-radius', but the
end-result is the same ... no executing the tool on hardware outside
of the radius:

Cadence : 1 mile radius within licensed machine-node
(Sysadmin told me this...didn't double-check myself.)

Synopsys: 5 mile radius within licensed machine-node
(couldn't find the agreement, but found this on Solvnet.)

Model/Mentor: 800 meter (0.5mi) radius within licensed machine-node
(Download the user's manual for any Modelsim product.)
Click to expand...
[snip]

/RANT OFF

Any comments?
Click to expand...
 
Rene Tschaggelar <none@none.net> writes:

The whole is solved by a notebook being the work machine at
the expense of reduced performance.
Click to expand...
I don't think his company is too happy about spending multi $100,000
for licenses exclusively to a single users notebook...


Petter
--
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
 
license_rant_master wrote:

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.)
Click to expand...
Hve you filed bug reports? I know the Icarus Verilog bug database
is getting pretty large :-( but it does get looked at and worked
down.

--
Steve Williams "The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
steve at icarus.com But I have promises to keep,
http://www.icarus.com and lines to code before I sleep,
http://www.picturel.com And lines to code before I sleep."
 
In comp.arch.fpga bko-no-spam-please@ieee.org wrote:
license_rant_master <none@nowhere.net> writes:

I am an ASIC engineer who frequently 'takes work home' with me.
... According to the
language/legalese of the license-agreement, a license 'seat'
is tied to a physical location called 'site.'

Here's a hint: like a lot of things in life, these restrictions are negotiable
if you are a big enough customer.
Click to expand...
The trend of "unless you are going to fork us over some more megabucks and
are a large company anyways we will disallow doing resonable things" in
software licences is rather disturbing.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++
 
JJ wrote:
Ever hear of VPN?
Click to expand...
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?

--

Rick "rickman" Collins

rick.collins@XYarius.com
Ignore the reply address. To email me use the above address with the XY
removed.

Arius - A Signal Processing Solutions Company
Specializing in DSP and FPGA design URL http://www.arius.com
4 King Ave 301-682-7772 Voice
Frederick, MD 21701-3110 301-682-7666 FAX
 
On Thu, 01 Jul 2004 19:21:28 +0200, Lasse Langwadt Christensen
<langwadt@ieee.org> wrote:

I think some companies (big ones) can a special license, I know one that share
worldwide and I would think they have a pool of licenses
Click to expand...
This was certainly the case when I was at Agilent. We had three
license server triads (three each in Germany, US and Singapore) that
served the company's global license needs.

It sucked a bit that we were in Melbourne, and the closest server was
several thousand km away. The time taken to acquire a license was so
long that some users would simply not close the gui (e.g. in Modelsim)
and use up a license all day even when they didn't need to use the
tool.

Regards,
Allan.
 
On Fri, 02 Jul 2004 00:25:46 +0700, Rudolf Usselmann
<russelmann@hotmail.com> wrote:

Here is another free Verilog simulator, you might find
it will run the more serious verilog jobs:

http://www.pragmatic-c.com/gpl-cver/
Click to expand...
"GPL Cver is a full 1995 P1364 Verilog standard HDL simulator. It also
implements some of the 2001 P1364 standard features ... as defined in
the 2001 Language Reference Manual (LRM)."

Doesn't sound like it's quite ready for serious work yet.

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


"mx" <mx@mx.com> wrote in message
news:0V4Fc.84714$s25.47872@newssvr29.news.prodigy.com...
Rene Tschaggelar wrote:
The whole is solved by a notebook being the work machine at
the expense of reduced performance.

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.

(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. This is cheaper for the new owner, because they don't
have to 're-purchase' the licenses (large one-time non-recurring
expense), rather merely pay the quarterly/yearly support-fee (smaller
recurring expense.)
Click to expand...
 
mx wrote:

Rene Tschaggelar wrote:

The whole is solved by a notebook being the work machine at
the expense of reduced performance.


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.
Click to expand...
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
 
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