3000's cells seem simpler to retrained vets
State of HP license transfers alive, kicking

HP insists emulator transfers be immediate

An HP 3000 emulator offered to the community for evaluation or personal use will require a license transfer right away, HP's Jennie Hou has confirmed.

A personal, freeware version of the Stromasys 3000 emulator product is coming very soon. It's a 1- E3000 PU horsepower instance, basically a Series 918. It's designed to help customers test the abilities of the emulator. Stromasys already distributes this kind of freeware for its VAX/Alpha emulator.  

Hou said HP requires its customers to transfer an MPE license at the time they start to use this freeware product.  "The one-to-one license transfer is required," Hou reported.

In 2004, HP outlined the terms for an emulator-only license of MPE/iX. An FAQ created in 2008 stated that 'If "a customer cannot transfer a license from an existing HP e3000" to an emulator installation, can they pay HP $500 for an RTU license to enable that emulator." By this year, however, the only licenses available are the Software License Transfer licenses from existing 3000 systems.

The immediate-transfer intepretation of HP's licensing policies could stand in the way of any legal use of the Personal Freeware version of HPA/3000. The vendor's offer of $500 emulator RTU license "has expired and it’s no longer available," Hou said. That license never got used by the 3000 customer base -- because no emulator was ready to ship by the end of 2010, when HP's RTU offer expired.

Interpretations of the SLT process are Hou's responsibility. The vendor's SLT Process webpage states that "The person representing the Transferee cannot sign the Request Form." In the case of an emulator transfer, the person initiating the transfer will always be the transferee, one and the same. It's as if they're saying, "I'm transferring my legal copy of MPE to my new emulator." 

But Hou said that emulator-based license transfers within a customer's site present no problem for the current process.

"What the SLT FAQ meant is that the transferor has to sign the request form," Hou said. "In the case of an emulator transfer, the transferor and the transferee could be the same person. Thus, that person can sign it."

There are five parts to a software right-to-use license transfer: the Request, the Proof, the Transfer Fee, the Software License Terms and the Authorization. Each of these five parts must be in place before HP will grant a right-to-use license.

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