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From: frank@CAEN.ENGIN.UMICH.EDU (Randy Frank)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re:  Apollo's Network License System (NLS)
Message-ID: <3fe260d2f.000bf2e@caen.engin.umich.edu>
Date: 25 Nov 88 21:09:01 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 30

I think that while Apollo's NLS is an excellent technical idea, their marketing
strategy in for the birds.  In particular, having talked with several third
party software companies about thier plans for using NLS, virtually all have
said that Apollo's royalty scheme is unacceptable.  As I understand it, Apollo
isn;t just charging for the software, but is actually charging for each key
purchased.

If Apollo's goal is to get some of its technology adopted by the wider
community (a la Sun and NFS or MIT/DEC and X windows) Apollo had better start
coming up with marketing plans that don;t turn off the rest of the community.

At least one other company (Frame Technologies) decided to implement their own
license server at least based in part on Apollo's idiotic licensing of NLS
(this based on info told me be a friend at Frame).  The point is that NLS is an
interesting although not totally novel idea.  

It isn;t that hard to independently come up with other implementations of a license
server. The industry will be a lot better off is a SINGLE license server
becomes the de-facto standard.  However, Apollo's current marketing scheme
guarantees that this won;t be Apollo's implementation.  Apollo needs to understand
that it stands to gain a lot more from having its implementation of the
license server idea become the standard as opposed to the potentially minor
revenue stream that is MIGHT get from, in my opinion, a stupid royalty scheme.

Apollo: charge a REASONABLE on-time license fee to software houses and forget 
about this nonsense of charging for keys.  REASONABLE: substantially less than
it would cost a software house to implement on their own a replacement for NLS.
You'll be doing yourself and the industry a favor, and this might even
contribute to improving your image within the industry as a side effect.

Randy Frank