New eagle licensing -> goodbye Eagle

I agree.I have a 5 user licenses, been a user for 7 years, users at different locations and no VPN. Now I have to go through a series of handstands to use what I bought. BS. My time is better spent on make money and not wasting it. I've been mulling over Altium, which incidentally imports Eagle files, it costs a bunch but this maybe the push I need.

On 18/07/14 22:01, Simon Gornall wrote:

So, I've used Eagle now for over 10 years. In all that time I've always

upgraded to the latest version, but that's just stopped.

 

I have multiple computers, and I use multiple locations. I've always

only ever used one instance of Eagle at a time, and I've never given the

license details to anyone else. Unfortunately, the latest way in which

Eagle is licensed is way too restrictive for me to work with the product

as I have done for over a decade now.

I absolutely agree. Part of the reason I picked EAGLE was because of the

relatively liberal licensing policy. "Install on as many PCs as you

like, as long as they all belong to you personally and only one PC is

running EAGLE at a time". Great!

The reason I switched to EAGLE in the first place was a competitor

product which employed node-locked licensing. My PC failed, and they

demanded I buy the product again to get a new license key. I declined.

Some months later, they went out of business...

What is the EAGLE hostID generated from? The motherboard? The hard

drive? The partition serial numbers? The network card MAC address?

If my network card, motherboard or whatever the HostID is based on

fails, do I need to buy a new license? These type of license policies

are very clearly profit-oriented and anti-consumer, and tells your

customers that you don't trust them.

The problem is two-fold:

• You are only allowed to install on 2 (which is pitiful!) computers if

you have a single user license.

• You cannot use a flexlm-based license for a single-user license.

 

• If your PC (or in the case of some license managers, your network

card) fails, you can't use the software and have to buy a new license,

or at least wait for a new license key.

• If your PC is stolen (very common for laptops), you lose one of your

two licenses...

• Some of us have more than one PC. I have a desktop in my office, an

SFF desktop in the lab, a netbook and a full-size laptop. So I'd have to

buy two separate EAGLE licenses (or a five-machine site license) just to

have enough "single user" seats to use EAGLE on all these machines, even

though I only use one at a time!

The combination of those two things means I can't duplicate the setup I

currently have, so this is the classic example of how proprietary

software owners can screw you over without you having any recompense or

workaround, despite you being a paying and loyal customer for an

extended period of time. I don't consider cracking the software to be an

adequate workaround.

 

So, if I'm going to have to spend $$$ in the thousands, I'll take a good

look at the competition first, and even at the freebies like kikad.

Kicad is starting to look really good - CERN have been putting a lot of

work in. I just don't like the lack of continuous forward/back

annotation (one of EAGLE's killer features).

A primary rule for any software "upgrade" is "don't break the existing

workflows". Eagle v7 is completely useless to me, not because of its

feature-set, not because of any price issues, but because the management

is being pants-on-head moronic about how it goes about licensing.

Licensing, of all things.

Agreed. Hierarchical design was one of the features I really wanted to

try (especially if I can reuse hierarchical design units), and I'd

gladly have paid the upgrade fee for it.

But with these licensing changes, I will not be upgrading, and I'll be

looking at competing products (of which there are many).

For corporate customers this probably won't be an issue (most of them

probably buy enough 'seats' to get a server-based floating license

anyway). But for hobbyists? This is going to be a deal breaker.

Thanks,

--

Phil.

philpem@philpem.me.uk

http://www.philpem.me.uk/

I'm not (and never have been) an Eagle user but this licensing horror is so familiar. I have at least 6 serious bits of licensed software and only one of them supports a dongle (one of the others does if you pay extra). All the others use these silly machine locked licenses with issues arising at every upgrade and if a computer should die etc etc.

At least the dongle can be moved about easily.

I sometimes feel I should give up on paying and just use a pirate copy with less hassle.

I thought it was generally agreed that it was silly restrictions on legal music downloads that gave piracy such a foothold - why do software companies insist on repeating the same mistake ?

Currently I use EasyPC from Number One Systems, cheaper than Eagle (much) and pretty good - never had any licensing issues.

MK

Am 19.07.2014 10:37, schrieb Michael Kellett:

so familiar. I have at least 6 serious bits of licensed software and

only one of them supports a dongle (one of the others does if you pay

And if all of them had dongles, including EAGLE, you could carry 7 seven

dongles around. What a wonderful imagination. If if one of these dongles

breaks, you'll have to wait for replacement. Even more wonderful.

CadSoft had a perfect single user licensing scheme. Why on earth

couldn't they just keep it as it was, after adding the additional

options for volume users?

Rene

On 18.07.2014 23:01, Simon Gornall wrote:

I have multiple computers, and I use multiple locations. I've always

only ever used one instance of Eagle at a time, and I've never given the

license details to anyone else. Unfortunately, the latest way in which

Eagle is licensed is way too restrictive for me to work with the product

as I have done for over a decade now.

Same here.... We even have a 3 seat license, which in the last 10 years

never was used with more than a single user.

Markus

"And if all of them had dongles, including EAGLE, you could carry 7 seven

dongles around. What a wonderful imagination. If if one of these dongles

breaks, you'll have to wait for replacement. Even more wonderful."

I'd still only have 6 - I don't use Eagle

I never said that dongles were perfect but I find them a good deal more user friendly than node locked licenses. Of course different people have different issues and one size doesn't fit all. The best software suppliers manage to offer a range of options so that their customers are happy and their IP is still protected.

In my experience dongles fail a lot less often than computers.

Ideally I'd like a system that didn't rely on node locking, dongles, access to internet etc etc but there doesn't seem to be one. Trust systems seem to work OK with some software but not with other, even similar, products.

MK

Hello everyone,

The protection of his software is a big challenge for a company. I'm really aware of that since I work in a company that design electronics but also is a software editor (software for industry). I think that Cadsoft needs to change their protection system, because they wouldn't spend so many week of work to do it. Maybe it was for technical reasons (maximum license number ?), maybe because they discover that too many eagle users use it with out license.

(It happened to my company: our  software was protected by dongle (I will not tell the brand of this dongle here) and 3 years ago, we found that you could buy on internet a software that simulate these dongles, and some of our customer use it ...).

My first point t is, I will not complain about changing the protection mechanism: we change password, don't we ?

But, selecting a good protection needs to understand what are the consequences for your customer and your company. I think Cadsoft miss that. In our company, we never propose a protection based on host ID, because host ID is troubles for your customers and also for you. And troubles is not how we do business in industrial environment.

We propose to our customers 2 solutions: license server EVEN FOR 1 USER LICENSE, or dongle protection (we designed our own new dongle, I have done the PCB design (with Eagle of course)).

Why Host ID is trouble for customers:

1. - You PC crashes, or need a reinstall, you loose the host ID. Even if Cadsoft regenerate a new license, you already lost time to reinstall or change your PC, but you have spare time to beg a new license ! not really 'industrial'... Ho, I forget, you can use a second host id... so now, explain me how I will give you TODAY the host ID of my future pc or OS I will have when, in 11 month, I will need to change my PC (or OS) ?!?
2. - In industry, it's easy to manage IDENTICAL COMPUTER. So even  there is 1 user license, license server is always the best option. Most of our big customers  always have a spare computers, ready to go, and If someone encounter some trouble, they immediately change the computer: it's easy if all is on server, not with host ID. And don't think that they are crazy: they know how much it cost when you employees can not work... That why we do the same in our company.
3. - You boss will finally accept to buy you a new computer with higher performance, but you will explain that it's tricky, you can really easily change your PC because of that host ID ??????
4. - I also have a personal license (for my personal use since I'm also a hobbyist), my pc run with LInux (opensuse).  Each time there is a new linux distribution I install it on my computer (1 per year). Will i have to beg for a new license ?????
5. - and I don't mention all the good reasons previously written on that forum...

And on the Cadsoft side, there are 2 options:

1. - They accept to regenerate host ID to all customer that need to : It's a lot of work for nothing, and they will not control any thing ( what will prove them that you have changed your os or your pc ? ( I will not spend a penny to send them the remains of my  PC)...
2. - They refuse to regenerate host id: they will be accused of theft by their customers.

My conclusion :

So I'm sorry to say that: it's not really serious to choose:  'No dongle AND no flexlm for 1 user'.

For my company, my boss is not ready to buy a software based on host ID. And if there is no way to have a license server option (or at least a dongle), I think I would have trouble to convince him (we don't have the auto-router license, so except hierarchical schematics, this version will bring us hostID, (hoop sorry) troubles...).

For my own personal license: I was about to purchase the V7 update, but I will not, unless:

• Cadsoft propose a dongle option (even if it costs a little bit more because of the dongle itself).
• or Cadsoft will confirm that in November, when I will reinstall new linux OS (next opensuse version) (On the same computer of course), the host ID will not change.
• or last option, Cadsoft let us purchase a single user flexlm license, so I could run the server on a old computer. But that solution sucks because this means that I could not use Eagle out of my home, even if my computer is a laptop !

PS for Cadsoft reader:

I understand the need to change a protection system.

I understand that dongle can be challenging, specially if you plan to use dongle from an other company.

Our experience is that we designed our own dongle, 3 years ago. We already sold 2700 dongle with our software, and each dongle cost us 14€. This dongle is design for us only, so hackers have too few interest to hack the protection. And we save money: the previous one cost us 35€ and it was so popular (used by several famous software) that is was hacked !

But why no 1 user server based solution ?????

Guillaume Barrey

"My first point t is, I will not complain about changing the protection mechanism: we change password, don't we ?"

It takes 30 seconds to change a password. I've spent 2 fruitless and frustrating hours trying to install the license server using inadequate instructions without success.

IMHO dongles are a pain as well. I have about a two dozen software packages that don't use dongles and are reasonably well protected.

Why can't Eagle serve the licenses so I don't have to host a server. There will be no need for VPN and no need for me to screw around for hours adding more unwanted software on my computer.

What really irks me is that installing 7.0.0 removed previous versions, so here I am without the ability to continue working.

What a royal blunder. Thanks Eagle!!!

patweston a écrit:

 

"My first point t is, I will not complain about changing the protection mechanism: we change password, don't we ?"

It takes 30 seconds to change a password. I've spent 2 fruitless and frustrating hours trying to install the license server using inadequate instructions without success.

 

IMHO dongles are a pain as well. I have about a two dozen software packages that don't use dongles and are reasonably well protected.

Why can't Eagle serve the licenses so I don't have to host a server. There will be no need for VPN and no need for me to screw around for hours adding more unwanted software on my computer.

 

What really irks me is that installing 7.0.0 removed previous versions, so here I am without the ability to continue working.

 

What a royal blunder. Thanks Eagle!!!

My point was that some time we have to change things. But when we plan to change something, we had to think about it carefully and think about the consequences. And it's seems that Cadsoft didn't figure that.

I didn't know that installing V7 will uninstall previous version. THAT IS STUPID FOR A SOFTWARE USED FOR PRODUCTION OR INDUSTRY. How could we work if the new version is buggy. And how we open/edit some project without converting it to new version (to send it to someone who still work with the previous version for example)

And according to your message, it seems that the documentation were not ready too...

The idea of Eagle serving license is quite good (National Instrument use some thing like that for is Labveiw software and it work fine !) The limitation is that you need internet access...

For dongle protection, I encounter some trouble too (with the Autocad's dongle, and with dongles we used to protect our software. That why we develop our own dongle).

Guillaume barrey wrote:

 

The idea of Eagle serving license is quite good (National Instrument use some thing like that for is Labveiw software and it work fine !) The limitation is that you need internet access...

 

Well it would be good - if they allowed single user licenses to use flexor, but since they don't, it's a non-starter for me.