Charge:
The subcommittee on Software Site Licensing shall initiate a
fact finding process to establish a glossary of site licensing
terms and issues, initiate an inventory of site licenses
among University units and discuss the implications and
feasibility of centralization of licenses.
Site License Services provided at selected universities:
| Term | Deffinition |
|---|---|
| Software Package | A set of license, media and documentation. |
| License | A single-user-license is a legally binding agreement between a user and the software manufacturer, entitling the user to run the program on one machine per license. Installing software on more machines than you have licenses is a violation of the copyright law. Some times the license detail reads that the software can not be being used on more than one machine at a time. (This might allow for a single user copy to be used at work and at home as long as not simultaneously at both places.) Site-licenses are a mixed bag depending upon the issuer (see below). |
| media | the media (a set of diskettes -or- a CD that contains the electronic files part of the software package -or- the installation file that was distributed electronically.) |
| documentation | documentation (a manual or a set of manuals that explain the use of the software package) |
| site license | A 'site license' can mean different things depending upon the issuer. It can also have substantially different consequences than owning a single-user license. Often, as a site-license user, one does not have access directly to the original media and each sublicensee or seat-owner may not receive original 'documentation' or be able to access the same help sources as a single-user licensee. |
| savings | Although a license is required for each system on which the software package is installed (or for each concurrent user of software installed on a file server), a department does not require a separate set of media, or documentation for each license. To save money, the user or department may need to purchase only what is required for their particular situation (i.e. one set or copy of media, one or as few as convenient sets of documentation and one license for each system the software is installed on). |
| network file server (NFS) |
An NFS allows files to be shared around the network, for example, for storage and retrieval of files on a disc drive that is on another computer or sending a printer file to a networked printer. |
| MHEC | Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium for purchasing contracts. |
| Unit | Software | Seats | Purpose/Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Natural Science & Math, George Drake, Director of Computing and Networking. |
Hummingbird NFS Maestro | ca. 230 | network file service for PCs. |
| Hummingbird's Exceed X windows server |
ca. 30 | An X-Windows utility for PCs which has some high end benefits over Xwin32 as an X sever. | |
| Intercon's NFS/Share | 100 | NFS Access for Macs. Abandoned in favor of Appletalk with exception of cases in which Appletalk will not work. | |
| Star Office (being considered) |
? | Office Productivity Suite software for Linux, Solaris, OS/2, Windows. A decision by NSM to share this license package with Computer Science and Engineering Computer Services is imminent. Whether other units would be interested is not known. Free 'personal editions' are available. | |
| Computer Science |
Sun Software | ? | Sun products running on Sun computers such as Sparcstations used by many departments for departmental business and teaching. Computer Science handles the contract in a proactive way providing timely updates and access to consulting. Management of this critical set of software licenses is best done by the unit(s) that have the most interest in keeping them up to date. |
| Engineering Computer Services |
Silicon Graphics (SGI) software | ? | Software designed specifically for SGI machines. ECS handles the SGI contract quite well. Very few people outside Engineering and NSM use SGIs and there would be no gain and a lot to lose in moving that contract. |
| OGIA
Office of Geographic Information Services |
ESRI Software ARC/INFO, ArcView GIS, MapObjects, Internet Map Server, Spatial Database Engine, ArcCAD, etc. |
? | GIS software. |
| MHEC
Vendors |
Software House International and others. |
SHI is an MHEC vendor for Microsoft software. |
The work of the committee is incomplete and it is recommended that this committe be continued to next academic year with the charge to continue its work of examining the issues involved in providing more efficient organization of the site licenses and software availablity on the UMass Amherst campus.
Joe Kunkel
Subcommitte Chair.