Another license server begs for cryptanalysis

[gnu (John Gilmore)]

I love these servers where "a short encrypted string" can enable access
to all sorts of things...

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                                                        The Florida SunFlash

                       Third Party Announcements

SunFLASH Vol 53 #30					            May 1993
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Subject:      Viman Software Ships LicenseServ 3.0  - License Manager
Newsgroups:   comp.newprod
Contact:      Vikram Duvvoori
Organization: Viman Software, Santa Cruz, California
Phone:	      (800) 827-4590 (USA, Canada, Mexico); Ph: (408) 459-0678 
FAX: 	      (408) 458-2862
email: 	      info@viman.com

    Viman Software Ships LicenseServ 3.0 on all major workstations.

Santa Cruz, CA., Th. April 29, 1993 - Viman Software today announced 
the release of its next generation of network license manager, 
LicenseServ 3.0, for all major workstation platforms (including Sun, 
HP, NeXT, IBM RS/6000, DEC, SGI, Apollo and IBM PCs). LicenseServ is a 
licensing software package that allows software developers to support 
a wide range of licensing options including usage based licensing and 
full-featured evaluation copies.

Existing customers who have been shipping their products with LicenseServ 
for over a year now have been extremely satisfied with their experience.
Some complex applications were licensed by earlier customers within 
a few minutes and were shipping globally within one week.  With a
comprehensive set of features at an affordable price, LicenseServ brings 
sophisticated licensing within the reach of even small software developers. 

LicenseServ is available on more than twenty Unix platforms. Integration
is straightforward as it only involves adding a few (3 in many cases)
function calls to the application code.  The licensing is transparent to 
end-users and the tools which come with LicenseServ make license management 
simple for system administrators at the end-user sites. This release
introduces several new licensing features along with function-level 
compliance with the LS API 1.0 - a recent standard in license management.

Software vendors license their applications by linking them to the 
LicenseServ libraries. The vendors then have a rich set of choices. A 
small sample of the range of licensing options includes:
        - Personal/Group Licenses (restricting usage to a set of   
          users/machines)
        - Component Licenses (licensing different modules within an 
          application)
        - Shared licenses (several users/machines sharing a single license)
        - Site licenses (usage restricted to a particular site)
        - Version control (licensing different versions of the same software)
The licenses can be customized for each of the copies shipped. The software 
can be restricted to a limited number of concurrent copies running on the 
network, or node-locked to a particular set of machines. The vendor can 
easily create full-featured demo copies of applications that can  be sent 
with a "time-bomb" which would prevent them from running beyond a certain 
date. Extensions of this date, or upgrading the demo to a full release,
could then be done by simply sending a short encrypted string over the phone 
or facsimile. 

The basic version, LicenseServ Standard, lists at $2000 for the first 
platform and $1000 for each additional platform. The advanced version, 
LicenseServ Extended, lists at $ 5000 for the first platform and $ 2000 
for each additional platform. All prices include 1 year of free technical 
support, upgrades and a 30 day money back guarantee. 

Viman Software is headquartered at 1320 Mission Street, Suite 5, Santa Cruz,
CA 95060, USA. For more information please send email to info@viman.com or 
call toll-free (800) 827-4590 (408-459-0678 outside North America) or send a 
fax to (408) 458-2862
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LicenseServ, LS API 1.0, Sun, HP, NeXT, IBM RS/6000, DEC, SGI, Apollo and 
IBM are trademarks of their respective owners.