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Evaluation software marked as commercial software - how to handle

When tracking the installed applications on our systems and match them to licenses I found a commercial marked license for an application IBM Product XL C++. 

To get more information I contacted an engineer of that particular system / device. He is telling me this is an evaluation version which is expired (also proofed it by sending the output of the command).

I thought every commercial marked application needs a license. 

In this case it seems to be an evaluation version and counts as commercial and uses a license entitlement. That seems not to be correctly displayed in license entitlement overview.

Can you give me feed back on how to handle? Does this i.e. means I have to check every separate commercial application on if it is a evaluation version (I hope not).

Or is the application not marked correctly in the ARL?

Kind regards, frank

(1) Solution

Hello Nico_Erasmus,

Thank you for replying to this post.

In the meantime I contacted the engineer and asked for an .ndi file for further investigation.

Found some interesting information:

<Package Name="vacpp.tnb" Evidence="LPP" Version="12.1.0.0" InstallDate="20130514T140416">
<Property Name="Architecture" Value="ppc"/>
<Property Name="Summary" Value="IBM XL C/C++ Evaluation Licence Files"/>
<Property Name="ProductName" Value="vacpp.tnb"/>

This means in NDI file it gives back the application is marked as Evaluation. 

I'm going to create a case for this to add this to the ARL.

Kind regards, Frank

 

 

View solution in original post

(4) Replies

Hi Frank.

If there is a discernible distinction between the evaluation installation and the commercial installation, then you can post it to the ARL team via a support ticket.  If the only difference is the license key applied, or the fact that he had a 30 day trial that expired, then I would not expect to see this resolved in the ARL.

In my experience, the Flexera are risk averse -- by that I mean that they rather highlight software as a risk than not if there is a deeper level of information needed to make the distinction.

Further, one can't only focus on commercial software.  There are many freeware titles that require licenses if deployed in a corporate - the trigger for commercial exposure may be the number of and method deployments in an estate.

 

Regards,

Hello Nico_Erasmus,

Thank you for replying to this post.

In the meantime I contacted the engineer and asked for an .ndi file for further investigation.

Found some interesting information:

<Package Name="vacpp.tnb" Evidence="LPP" Version="12.1.0.0" InstallDate="20130514T140416">
<Property Name="Architecture" Value="ppc"/>
<Property Name="Summary" Value="IBM XL C/C++ Evaluation Licence Files"/>
<Property Name="ProductName" Value="vacpp.tnb"/>

This means in NDI file it gives back the application is marked as Evaluation. 

I'm going to create a case for this to add this to the ARL.

Kind regards, Frank

 

 

The concept of "evaluation" software is a corporate environment can throw up some interesting questions and scenarios which may be more complex than meets the eye.

The most common one I have seen is a condition in evaluation license agreements that boil down to something like the following : "you may use the software for evaluation purposes for up to N days from the day the software is first installed in your company".

It is typically going to be unknowable by anybody installing software in "evaluation" mode whether somebody else has previously installed it and used up the legal evaluation period, so the conservative & safe approach is indeed to treat "evaluation" software as really requiring a license until proven otherwise.

With that said, these points are general in nature and I don't know whether they would apply to the specific specific IBM XL C/C++ software being discussed here. The NDI content that you have identified is not the type of content that gets used for recognition. As such, it may not be feasible for FlexNet to automatically recognize the installation as using an evaluation license (at least, not without configuring some fancy import process, which would likely be more complex than valuable). The manual investigation approach you have done may be your best option here.

(Did my reply solve the question? Click "ACCEPT AS SOLUTION" to help others find answers faster. Liked something? Click "KUDO". Anything expressed here is my own view and not necessarily that of my employer, Flexera.)

Another item to keep in mind with "evaluation" software is that if you look at the EULA, you are restricted to a small number of evaluation copies.  If you install more than that, you must license them.

For example, if the EULA restricts an organization to having 1 install of evaluation software and 5 are installed, then 4 of those installs must have a purchased license, regardless of whether or not FNMS is able to recognize that the installations are "Evaluation" or "Trial".

Kirk