HP 3000 group tightens upgrade licenses
February 19, 2008
The Right to Use (RTU) MPE/iX licenses which HP created last spring just got tougher terms. On Feb. 18, without notice on the HP 3000 community's newsgroup or to OpenMPE list readers, HP added an upgrade policy statement which gets very specific about what HP hardware a customer can run MPE/iX upon.
In summary, only the hardware which MPE/iX was originally purchased for is a permitted target, unless a 3000 customer purchases an RTU. The statement, available from the HP e3000 Web site as a PDF file, addresses the transfer of MPE/iX to other HP servers "without prior written approval from Hewlett-Packard."
MPE/iX Fundamental Operating System (FOS) and HP database right-to-use licenses on the HP e3000 servers allow customers to use that software only on the system for which it was purchased. FOS and HP database software may not be transferred to other servers without prior written approval from Hewlett-Packard.
The most specific changes to the HP policy come in a new version of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document about the RTU. HP has even left open possible and likely violations which any customer might engage in — violations which HP's 3000 group has not yet defined. In that FAQ HP says while explaining its "permissible hardware path:"
Any configuration not expressly allowed under the MPE/iX RTU should be viewed as a possible violation of the policy. To be more specific, running MPE/iX OS on any hardware under the following conditions without explicit HP approval would likely violate the existing MPE/iX RTU:
1. Any system not sold as an original HP 3000 or HP e3000.
2. Genuine HP e3000 systems with modifications to hardware, system settings, OS software, or other system attributes which are outside of HP’s published allowed Upgrade Paths or Supported Configurations.
3. Genuine HP e3000 systems with allowed hardware configurations but with modifications to cause the reporting of system attributes which are not equal to those actually present or configured on the system. For example, the number and type of CPUs present, System Model String or HPSUSAN by any method including binary patching, insertion of a system library or modification of stable storage values.
Possible violations of the MPE/iX RTU policy are not limited to the scenarios listed above.
The language tightens up HP's permission to boot up a new server with a copy of MPE/iX purchased along with an older one. Moving MPE/iX to a VM/iX server, an upgrade solution available from Orbit Software, may be the target of the new policy language. Orbit said in a statement last week that the company believes HP's RTU terms do not apply to customers who hold their original HP MPE/iX licenses.
Just as in its 2007 introduction of the RTU, HP hasn't named any single vendor whose upgrade business practices would be prohibited by the policy. A VM/iX server requires a copy of MPE/iX provided by the 3000 customer to complete the installation.
The word "illegal" has not come out from any HP representative on the RTU matter so far, and the new policy statement only says that using MPE/iX upgraded or modified hardware systems is "prohibited."
When HP introduced the RTU in 2007, its first HP 3000 product in more than four years, HP e3000 R&D Lab Manager Ross McDonald said HP believes that its new license, including the restrictions on moving MPE/iX from one system to another, will be respected by a subset of its customers.
For the customer who cares about software licensing, and wants to do the right thing, I think it really helps them. And those are lots of good customers that we want to keep. This [creation of a new product] was not an easy activity to go through on a product that we’re winding down. The partners we have discussed this with also really appreciate that we are trying to ensure clarity and consistency in terms of licensing in the HP e3000 community.