BIT 11: A clarification on license use.

[paolo.moro]

Hi, I have a doubt.
As I have written in other posts.
I use BIT (since 8.x version ) to check some configurations. I use it when I have doubts or at important projects that I have to present.
To make sure that the machine is tested clean, only with the operating system and the latest drivers, I use the possibility offered by the software (almost main motivation of my purchases) in “install to usb key” mode.
Does this mode, with version 11, violate licensing rights?
I ask because I made a USB stick, tried it on a machine and it reported the error I attach.

[David (PassMark)]

Run from USB and boot from USB options still exist in V11 and should work.

We did change the activation requirements in V11 to require internet activation. This was unfortunately required as we found some users would purchase 1 license and be using it on 1000s or 10,000s of machines.

We will be releasing a patch release today or tomorrow that we improve this error message. But in the meantime check the following.

1) Can you access our web site, passmark.com in a browser ?
2) Can you ping passmark.com ?
3) Is the date / time set correctly on the machine you are using ?

[Darren]

Hi, I've read through the new licensing FAQ, am I correct in my understanding that the only way we can now use v11 is on computers with an active internet connection?

If so then whilst I understand you want to protect people using multiple copies unlicensed but this is going to make the product unusable for a lot of our requirements as many tests are completed with the Internet connection disconnected for some valid reasons.

Please could you confirm this?

[Richard (PassMark)]

We also offer a site license option that doesn't need an internet connection and also allows unlimited use of the software in an organization.

See https://www.passmark.com/products/bu...st/price.php#3

[David (PassMark)]

Further there is also an option for customers with a large number of volume licenses to use the software offline, when you can convince us you are operating within the license terms.

[Darren]

Normally we will have BIT running on one machine at a time, occasionally we want use it on 2 machines simultaneously and on very rare occasions (perhaps once or twice a year) it may be on 3 machines.

If you are now saying we need 3 separate licenses then we can live with that however the constant Internet connection is a real problem. Some of the machines we build are systems built with a very specific image where we do not connect them to the Internet at all, ever, they are for use in offline environments.

In addition we had a machine on test yesterday and our ISP went down, we then went back to the machine a few hours later expecting it to be 6 hours into a test to find it had ended because the Internet connection was disconnected...

Expecting us to pay $7,455 for a site license to get functionality back that was already in previous versions is a bit much.

I realise you need to protect yourselves from people taking advantage but this seems a huge mis-step, surely you could come up with a better system than this which doesn't cause the problems detailed above?

[David (PassMark)]

...but this seems a huge mis-step

Maybe. But if we can force a few of the mega-corps, who are using the software on 10,000+ machines with 1 license, to do the right thing, this can more than make up for loosing a few customers with 1 license and no internet. Adobe, Microsoft, and pretty much every other software company in the world went down this path years ago (and in fact our revenue doubled compared to last year, but this was partially because it was a new version release and not totally due to licensing)

But EMail us your details and we can have a look at your situation.