Path: utzoo!yunexus!davecb
From: davecb@yunexus.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Re: DECstation 3100 **really** wants to be a rainbow.
Keywords: login
Message-ID: <5004@yunexus.UUCP>
Date: 10 Nov 89 15:29:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: yunexus.5004
References: <4903@yunexus.UUCP> <474@shodha.dec.com>
Organization: York U. Computing Services
Lines: 51

In article <4903@yunexus.UUCP>, davecb@yunexus.UUCP (David Collier-Brown) writes:
>>   Is this a limitation which DEC feels is advisable, to limit sales?

alan@shodha.dec.com ( Alan's Home for Wayward Notes File.) writes:
>	Nop, merely holding up our end of a legal contract.

  We've got to come up with a (:-))-glyph to indicate irony: Allan took
me a bit too literally...  

  What I was commenting on was the marketing decision that DEC made to sell
machines with a two-user license, presumably lowering their licensing
costs.  Various other vendors have elected to sell machines with a greater
initial-user limit, and in some cases without a compiled-in limit where the
nature of the hardware prevented more than one user from getting usefully
work done, thus enforcing the policy without explicit implementation.

  I can get around the limit {\em check} (and breach my agreement with DEC
and AT&T) by using rsh and x-windows, as suggested by various commentators.
But even if I do so, I have little reason to expect that the loophole won't
be closed.  And I'm at a University who has a policy of at least {\em trying}
to honor all its contractual commitments.

[and previously]
>	For a lot of customers the 2-user limit is sufficient.  If
>	you need more that option is available.

    If the machines are being used as {\em single-user} stations, with the
local user as administrator, user and operator, a one-user limit is
sufficient.  The limit can be in hardware, the operating system proper (eg,
it could run MS-DOS) or in operating system support programs (login). The
mechanism doesn't matter.
    It is is used in a very "bare" distributed environment, with all
disks and printers located and administered non-locally, the limitation
may not be noticeable.
    As soon as it is to be used in cooperative work, is attached to a
centrally administered network (with remote monitoring, advisors, backups,
ad infinitum), or the two-user limit becomes a disqualifying limitation.

   That DEC elects to impose a limit is praiseworthy: they're trying to
honor their agreements.  That DEC elects to impose a limit that will need
to be raised after installation, at a non-trivial cost, is known in the
trade as "low-balling".

   I shan't comment on the ethics of the latter.

--dave c-b
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | davecb@yunexus, ...!yunexus!davecb or
72 Abitibi Ave.,      | {toronto area...}lethe!dave 
Willowdale, Ontario,  | Joyce C-B:
CANADA. 416-223-8968  |    He's so smart he's dumb.