Wirt wrote:
> My primary comment is that the restrictions laid out appear basically
> reasonable, but otherwise completely unenforceable.

Thank you, and they are as enforceable as the license terms we
have today. We are trusting our customers, the emulator vendors,
and their customers to abide by the MPE/iX license terms. Today one
can copy MPE to another e3000 (illegally). Tomorrow one can copy
MPE to another PC, laptop, non-HP product, etc (illegally). Our rules
are like red traffic lights vs. a RR crossing. We don't intend to put
hooks into MPE to ensure that it is running on HP hardware. We don't
intend to ask the emulator vendors to do so either. We do expect our
customers to be honest and to respect the new MPE/iX license.

> They read as if they were written by the corporate legal staff rather
> than an engineering crew.

The letter and FAQ you've read were worked on by myself, Mike, a person
from HP legal, two folks from our s/w distribution center, a person
from s/w licensing and a few others. It originated from vCSY and was
modified by others, but it was a cross team effort.

> For example, how is the restriction that MPE/iX is to be run
> only on HP
> hardware to be enforced? That is a restriction that the
> developers of an
> emulator would have to enforce, but only if they elected to.
> HP itself has no
> way to ascertain if that restriction is being honored, and
> users will either
> know that initially or quickly discover it to be true.

It is not enforced by the product but it is enforceable by the
license. You can choose to ignore the terms of the license and
one of two outcomes are likely:  you use MPE illegally and do not
get caught, or you use MPE illegally, get noticed, and HP starts
some kind of legal action. This is no different than other s/w
license terms that many of you quickly read and accept.

> If it's not strictly
> enforced by the emulator developers, who are not HP
> employees, you can be
> certain that that covenant will be immediately broken.

I don't think there will be any code to break -- just license
terms.

> The difference between
> running an emulator under Linux on an HP PC is
> indistinguishably different
> from having the same done on a Dell box.

I agree.

> In general, I've long believed that it's counterproductive to impose
> unenforceable restrictions on a user community.  By patently
> allowing them to break some restrictions, all you're doing is
> encouraging them to disregard
> all of the other, more reasonable restrictions.

That might be a reason for HP to pursue companies that are
known to be breaking the terms of the license.

> The mood among the HP3000
> customer base is already summed up by: "well, HP screwed me over
> significantly. I don't mind if I screw them over a little bit
> in return."

HP does not need to relax the current MPE license. We are doing this
to help our customers that choose to use MPE past HP's support date.
There is a cost to HP to do this, and there is a chance of increasing
HP's liability by extending the life of MPE. This liability will not
be offset by revenue from the e3000 so it becomes a greater concern
to HP.

> Similarly, how is the one license/one machine restriction to
> be imposed?
> Again, that's beyond HP's control. And what happens if that
> one licensed
> machine breaks? It's cheaper nowadays to replace the whole
> server than have
> one repair techician look at the machine for one hour.

If one machine breaks and you were already running MPE in an emulated
environment, you can move MPE to a new machine without involving HP
at all. The new MPE/iX license can be moved to another HP platform
for free.

> I understand that most of these restrictions were written in
> to satisfy
> higher levels of corporate responsibility within HP itself

Yes, and to help protect HP from lawsuits, and to reduce the cost
of distributing MPE, and to meet many of the requirements of the
emulator vendors, and to meet many of the customer needs.

> and that most
> likely none of this would ever have come about without your
> diligent efforts
> in trying to satisfy those higher-level demands -- but if HP
> expects an
> honorable customer base for MPE/iX after 2004/2006, then it must more
> accurately consider the nature of the base and its motivations.

We understand that there will be customers that have no plans to
transition off of an e3000, and thus will not even buy an emulator.
We believe there are customers that plan on keeping their MPE
environment but wish to move it to current h/w and run MPE via
an emulator. We don't have a good sense of the size of this latter
market, but that is really for the emulator vendors to size up. We
also recognize that there are MPE customers that are still upset at
CSY's decision. I am hopeful that you and other homesteaders will
see that CSY is still trying to meet your future needs in spite of the
11/14 announcement.