New CAM350 License Date Stamp

[Tom]

We noticed the expiration date in our new CAM350 V7.5.1 license was changed. For the past 4 years the date in the license was set to Aug 11, 0000. Now it's set to Aug 11, 2004. To us this means that if we fall off maintenance CAM350 will expire and we lose our investment. This means that we did not purchase the software, but in fact are simply leasing it year to year. We have an inquiry into DownStream Technologies regarding this new License feature and I will get back to you on the outcome. So far all they say is that they will renew our license (what does that mean?)

[randychase]

Where do you notice this expiration date? I just looked at licensing under FILE SETUP ACCESS CODE.

Is it somewhere else? I was just going to upgrade to 7.5

[Tom]

I cannot post my entire license file, but I'll post the left hand side.

FEATURE CAM350-250 act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_Import_Info act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_Export act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_Modification act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_Optimization act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_MRC_DRC act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_Macro_Debugging act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_Basic_NC_Editor act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_DFF_DFM act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_DXF_Import act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_DXF_Export act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_Quote_Agent act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_MRC_Agent act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_Panel_Editor act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_Reverse_Engineering act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_ODB_Import act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_ODB_Export act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_PADS_Import act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004
FEATURE CAM_PADS_Export act_inc 7.500 11-Aug-2004

What happens on 12-Aug-2004??? No CAM350?

[Lameris]

I keep telling everyone you lease software, you don't really buy it... Why we pay these outragous upfront fees I don't understand.

Anyway, a 2 year license is pretty standard where "as long as you are on maintenance", you only recieve a time dated license. When your maintenance ceases, you recieve a "permanent" license. In the past, I have had this with Unicad, Innoveda and Cadence.

I like the 2 year license because: it gives me an opportunity to switch license servers (or at least their key number) without penalty at defined opportunities. Vendors like the 2 year license because it reduces the duplication at defined intervals that can occur by multiple licenses issued for a site.

You do have to stay on your toes and GET A LICENSE when a company shuts down. I'm not sure what would happen if a company went bankrupt...

[Tom]

After I posted this license issue I realized that it really doesn't matter. You're absolutely correct Gary. Two years is plenty of time (now-a-days). I really don't expect to be using the same version in two years from now. We'll probably be using V9.0 or something even higher. We have to stay up with technology or be run over by competition.

I also have to say that CAM350 has paid for itself many times over again by reducing our error rate and helping us provide better data to our vendors (data that really should be output from PowerPCB, but it doesn't and that's life). I can honestly say that if you took CAM350 away from our CAD department that we would be hurting. It is part of our design process with every product we produce.

I'm not in any kind of fear of expiration date stamping when dealing with DownStream Technologies. So far they seem to be a "Straight Up" organization with a good product and a great bunch of people. Mike Harris in technical support is always there for us when we need him.

I do not regret starting this thread to alert people of what their getting into, but there is absolutely nothing different going on here than what is going on in the entire industry.

[Tom]

The statement below summarizes DownStream Technologies response to "Timed Licenses". After a lengthy conversation with Joe Clark, he explained to me the reasoning behind their new policy. It made perfect sense to me, but I asked Joe to "Put it in writing" to give us the opportunity to share our conversation with you.


Hi Tom:

To summarize our discussion regarding timed licenses, we do now time all Ethernet based license. The reason for this change is very simple - there is a very high volume of Ethernet-based license transfer requests being placed on DownStream. Each time we do a transfer for an Ethernet based license, we are in effect duplicating the licenses - the new licenses plus the old licenses, which up until now have been non-expiring. And we know that this "duplication" has been abused in some instances. I emphasize "some" as the majority of companies respect and go out of their way to adhere to software licensing agreements. But abuse does occur, and we must take this into account because it is a requirement of any software provider to ensure that "due diligence" is always done to protect its intellectual property.

Note that we did not create a new industry policy or practice here in regards to Ethernet based licenses. What we did do was investigate and select to implement a policy in place at other, larger EDA companies. We have adopted the same model that PADS Software (Innoveda and now Mentor), for example, had in place for its PowerPCB product - Ethernet licenses are timed.

For customers that do receive a timed Ethernet based license - and this is very important - they ALWAYS have the rights to the license for the version of CAM350 software that they purchased or were last updated to (based on their last support contract). It is not required that a customer have a current support contract in order to obtain a new timed license, the customer retains the right to that license permanently. DownStream Technologies will always renew timed Ethernet based licenses. The software will notify the user of the pending expiration in advance (starting at 30 days).

Best,
Joe Clark

[Tom]

I've attached the "Offical" DownStream Technologies policy reagarding "Timed Network Licenses".

[randychase]

I have a key with my CAM350. It was working fine (Ver 7.01) until today when I loaded it and it loaded as shareware with a timed code. It will not take in the access code I was sent when I received the ver 7 update CD.

Any ideas why it would change to shareware?

[Skip Yutkus]

Randy,

Cam350 is not recognizing, (seeing), your dongle, check to make sure that it is connected, if it is it may be bad. Downstream should be able to give you a timed access code that you can use until your situation is resolved.

Also if you recently switched operating systems the problem could be there, some people have had problems using dongles with XP.

Skip