SKindigo license policy problem
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Hi,
I had decided to get more into SKindogo and prepared myself for the buy of one license. But as it seems one license means one hardwarekey installed. If you like to use SKindigo on your laptop, or on your system at home you can not. If you buy a new computer you can ask Glare Technologies for a new key, provided for free.I once bought a Dutch lessons application for my wife a few years ago. That app also worked by a installed hardware key. She first studied in Holland, got a second computer, then one at the school in Leiden, then went back to the Philippines and had a disk crash, came back to Holland and used my laptop and now she sometimes studies at my office on my desktop. Including all she had to email the maker of the app about 7 times to get a new key. In the beginning they sent them within 2 days and now they don't respond anymore due to overload of key requests.
Glare Technologies, change this silly license policy into the usual license key solutions. You will make more money, have more users and look more friendly.
As it is now I will not pay 300 euro's just to be able to use SKIndigo either at home or at the office or at my laptop. I also can not risk a project in case I get a system failure and have to wait (days ?) for a reply from Glare Technologies to sent me a new key for my backup system.
For th rest, SKindigo looks really good.
Francois -
Glares position seems quite reasonable to me, especially compared to most other major pieces of software i can think of (microsoft office, photoshop etc.) It certainly isnt common practice to have transferable licenses (at least in a home setting.)
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I dunno Remus, take E-on for instance (Vue) they have both floating license and stand alone, then with each licence sold you get three free render cow licenses (for network rendering)
When you start Vue it logs you so if you only have one standalone licence you can only use it at one time, so in other words it can be installed on as many machines as you have but only one works at a time.
If I have my main machine working with Vue and I start up a new session with my laptop it will work in demo mode (which is fine unless I need to render) which will switch to full mode if I close my desktop Vue.
This way I can only use one license at a time, unless I get a floating license.
However if I want to network render I set up on one machine (not important which one) and then select network render and it will search my network for all machines that have a render cow installed and distribute the render between them and gather final image in a folder your select at setup. -
Solo, your description of what you have there sounds to me like a web-monitored floating license. The other license is more like an 'unlimited' subscription of some sort... not a floating license... at least in my mind.
What happens if a guy never wants his "render baby" connected to the internet or any thing that could be 'tainted' (usb key)? (I know a couple like this)
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Actually we have SU Pro as an example for a license that can be used on any number of machines as long as you don't run them at the same time (then whichever was turned on later, will run in Eval mode) but of course, these machines need to be connected to the net for this.
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You mean to a LAN? Then it sounds similar to how Artlantis 4.5 licenses work.
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my only other computer at the moment is a G4 powerbook + my company bought indigo for me so i'm ok with the policy
[for now
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If Photoshop started like this it would not have gotten as popular.
Now, Skindigo is starting their app like this I am confident to state its the end of it as well.
There are no architects or architectural firms were people work on one system only. All work late, at home or at systems of others. The concept of linking a license to hardware is plain silly and this policy shows fear and bad judgement of Glare.
I would be happy to buy Skindigo but I don't want to invest my time over the next months to master Skindigo knowing its a deadend to start with.
Just imagine yourself before a deadline switching after a crash to a back system and having to wait till Glare decides to provide you a new license. Or you'd like to finish some hours work in the weekend and have to drive back half an hour to the office to get it done. At Glare they assume we are all students since its Sketchup...or that we do not read the license policy before we buy.
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Hey guys,
Sorry for the late reply. My response is that our licencing system isn't perfect. We've had requests for floating licences, personal licences, site licences, concurrent use licencing and more. We've decided to change how our licencing works. We haven't decided how exactly it's going to work yet - but trust us that we understand your qualms and we will be sorting it.
For now it works really well where you have one main render pc and two render slaves set up. If you want to do set-up work on your laptop, you can use the free version of Indigo for all your testing purposes, then use your main PC to start rendering the final.
Dale has done some amazing stuff with SketchUp recently, and we're constantly improving it. Indigo is the best quality unbiased renderer IMHO and on par with Maxwell for speed, I think learning SkIndigo is probably the best thing you could do to increase your ability to generate top-quality visualizations.
Ben Nolan
Indigo Renderer -
@benindigo said:
Indigo is the best quality unbiased renderer IMHO and on par with Maxwell for speed, I think learning SkIndigo is probably the best thing you could do to increase your ability to generate top-quality visualizations.
Top quality spiel there
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I think skindigo sounds sensual. Someone chose that name very carefully. Sounds like skin + indigenous. Makes you think of far away beaches in the Pacific Ocean.
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And there i was thinking it was just a mashup of sketchup and indigo
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I am happy the license system is getting changed.
One and a half year ago I bought Fryrender and they had an IP adress based licensing system as well.
Since then I changed PC's 3 times and I use a Laptop as well.Somehow it doesn't feel like you purchased the software as you can't move it from one PC to the other as you please, even though I would be the only one working on those computers.
I was never able to transfer a model from the desktop to laptop or vice versa to continue working and that is just unpleasant.
As a result, I abandoned using the software because of that, as it just killed my appetite.Piracy is one thing, and developers trying to overcome this is legit, but it definitely has a negative impact on the people who buy the software.
At times, you'd want to buy and pay for legit software and then get a craked pirat copy of the same program from the net, just to avoid the licensing hassle.
I know it is not done, but since you paid for it.... -
@kwistenbiebel said:
I am happy the license system is getting changed.
Piracy is one thing, and developers trying to overcome this is legit, but it definitely has a negative impact on the people who buy the software.When I went to study 3d some years ago the school had lots of problem getting a certain app licenses to work on the network.
After many tries from the resellers service people the school was told to download a cracked version since that was much more stable.
I wont say which app it was but it starts with Soft and ends with Image. -
I think the trouble began when developers started to use internet controlled IP adress based licensing.
It seriously limits the users freedom. -
Some weeks ago I was ready to move over to Skindigo but it is my strong believe that their license policy reflects a character present in Glare Technologies. It takes a certain attitude to hassle your paying users in their disadvantage to make sure you do not loose a penny on the bad guys. Many companies have a decent license policy that does not conflict with the majority of their users. Glare has a good example by SU itself.
I really liked the demo version of Skindigo though. Anyhow, the Maxwell plugin is going to get a major makeover by someone who has gotten good feedback on other plugins for Maxwell so I am with Maxwell still for a while. v2 is a lot faster and I think Maxwell still has a little edge over the other render app's for SU like camera shift, and a very advanced material editor and lots of materials in their public library.
Francois -
@frv said:
Some weeks ago I was ready to move over to Skindigo but it is my strong believe that their license policy reflects a character present in Glare Technologies. It takes a certain attitude to hassle your paying users in their disadvantage to make sure you do not loose a penny on the bad guys. Many companies have a decent license policy that does not conflict with the majority of their users. Glare has a good example by SU itself.
Let's not forget Google's a wealthy multinational, and Glare a two-man start-up. My guess is that the current licensing scheme has less to do with 'attitude' than a certain desire to no go bust prematurely due to piracy. Furthermore, I'm quite sure that Nick and Ben, whom I know as customer friendly, didn't decide upon the current policy without due consideration.
@frv said:
Anyhow, the Maxwell plugin is going to get a major makeover by someone who has gotten good feedback on other plugins for Maxwell
That is indeed good news for those of us who have a Maxwell license.
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Returning to the subject of "licensing schemes", I have just purchased Vue's RenderUp module for the free Vue 8 Pioneer. As I have both XP and 7 in my machine, I'll get the chance to see how smart their licensing system is. If it's smart enough, I'll be able to switch between XP and 7 without hassle.
...and I'll also be able to test what happens when your ISP is down.
Oh, and BTW, I think we've been centering the discussion around the wrong word/term/item. SkIndigo is free of charge and without limitations for all users. It is Indigo which needs a license to unlock watermark-free hi-res rendering.
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@unknownuser said:
My guess is that the current licensing scheme has less to do with 'attitude' than a certain desire to no go bust prematurely due to piracy. Furthermore, I'm quite sure that Nick and Ben, whom I know as customer friendly, didn't decide upon the current policy without due consideration.
I tend to disagree with the 'going bust' concept. (I am talking in general, not specifically about Indigo as I don't know their licensing system)
You can look at it in the opposite way. A (too) strict licensing system could push people to piracy.I purchased Vray and Fry, and to be honest, using the cracked versions of both pieces of software is tempting now.
Why? The people that download it 'for free' have all the freedom of doing with the software what they want, while the paying customers are frustrated with 'licensing procedures' and headaches when they want to use it on another computer, re-install their PC's etc...
I see a parallel with the music industry and the rise and fall of DRM copy protection. The industry ditched the DRM concept as the paying customers had more restrictions than the 'free downloaders'.If I was a developer, I would give paying customers a 'non restricted' version of the software as a bonus. That's customer service.
In a way, Piracy can contribute to growth as well.
I am pretty sure that Rhino for instance would have never gained the momentum it has now in the architectural field, without students at Uni's using cracked versions, getting really good at it, and afterwards asking the bosses of the arch firms they work for to buy it for the office.I am not saying that piracy is ok. But I think developers need to understand that they can 'manouvre' their way and turn it into a positive thing and remain lucrative in what they are doing.
By the way, most people use piracy copies to learn a piece of software or to test it to extent. Once they start using it commercially, I think most people start buying legit versions as a business can't afford getting caught having no official licenses at a software inspection. The fines are hugh!
My conclusion. Copy protection: yes! But not at the expense of paying customers.
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@kwistenbiebel said:
A (too) strict licensing system could push people to piracy.
Some, perhaps. In most cases, people just can't be arsed to cough up the dough.
Don't get me wrong, I see your point. I don't like to be kept waiting for three days until I finally receive my license key etc. Nor do I enjoy being treated like a potential criminal. But I do understand why developers are keen on taking measures to reduce piracy. Don't forget either that, in the end, paying users don't benefit from piracy: a company that makes less, is a company that invests less in fixing bugs etc.
There's one thing I'd like to see being made illegal, though: not being allowed to resell your license. I'd like to do with my property as I please.
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