VNC Enterprise Edition for Unix

[Mike Miller]

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005, Lou Kamenov wrote:

> Is there such thing as VNC Enterprise Edition for FreeBSD, theres one 
> for Linux alright?


Thanks for pointing out that the Unix Enterprise Editions (Solaris, Linux 
and HP/UX) are now available.  If there was an announcement, I missed it.

I am a little disappointed at the per-unix-desktop licensing scheme.  For 
one desktop I would pay $50.  For ten I would pay $39.00 each.  For 100, I 
would pay $17.40 each.  For 500, I would pay $5.88 each.  For more than 
500, I'd have to haggle, I guess.  On the bright side, this applies to 
multiple computers.  For example, I could have two servers with 50 
desktops each or 10 severs with 10 desktops each and the price is the same 
because it's a total of 100 desktops.

This leads to a fairly obvious question:  How does the licence key work 
with Xvnc to keep a limit on the total number of desktops when the 
desktops are running on multiple machines?  Is there an honor system, or 
is there a phone-home system?  Just wondering how it works.

I have had students who create a bunch of desktops for some foolish 
reason, like maybe they forgot their password.  Couldn't that cause 
problems if we only have a license for 10 desktops and we have 10 running, 
but someone gets confused and makes a few more?

By the way, VNC staff should note that the Solaris tar.gz file comes with 
a zero-byte LICENCE.txt file.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Mike

-- 
Michael B. Miller, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Division of Epidemiology and Community Health
and Institute of Human Genetics
University of Minnesota
http://taxa.epi.umn.edu/~mbmiller/