Pardon my tone, but

Read WHAT license agreement?  HP won't give me one.

A couple years ago I received a complete HP3000 967, very nicely running MPE
6.5, and including original OS tapes (never used), which was abandoned by a
pharmaceutical company that went out of business, abandoning their license
in the process.  How am I supposed to come up with a piece of paper that's
long been destroyed plus a  signature?  Whose signature?

HP refuses to license the machine to me, even by direct sale, despite my
willingness to lay my life on the line vis a vis my non-criminal acquisition
of the system; there sure isn't going to be anybody claiming it was stolen.
It was, like every other HP3000, originally sold with licenses intact, HP
knows that and has records to prove it; they have no reason to suspect that
this is one of "those HardwareHouse machines".

Draconian license transfer procedures within HP say I have a pile of parts,
if not a boat anchor; I still like to use it as a nice computer.  3rd party
vendors sure don't mind selling me software that requires the HPSUSAN key!

Come on down and see MY garage, HP, and bring the FBI with if you like.


Tracy (not at work!) Pierce


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jerry Fochtman [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 4:30 AM
> To: Tracy Pierce; [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] IT Property Rights Ramblin's Was Re:
> RPG Compiler
>
>
> At 03:52 PM 11/23/2004 -0800, Tracy Pierce wrote:
> >perfectly legal, I think, but you won't get a blessing from
> HP without a
> >license transfer, which is virtually impossible unless you
> have a very
> >specific very old original piece of paper with signatures.
> of course that
> >piece of paper contains info HP already has on file, but
> that will do you no
> >good, you must have the piece of paper.
>
> Nope....read the license agreement.   Does the agreement
> grant the license
> holder the ability to transfer the license?  Many agreements
> do not extend this
> to the licensee, and most will explicitly reserve this right
> to only the
> product
> owner/vendor.   This would be especially true if the license is for
> products that
> may be tier or user-count based.
>
> HP knows that license transfers/etc. will be an issue after
> 2006 and from what
> I understand, have either been working on or have formulated
> a plan to address
> it.   Whether or not IBMs situation also applies here I don't
> believe has been
> determined.
>

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