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Not just clerical errors. A major software vendor a previous employer used to use had a licensing system so badly designed that it only had 2 modes for confirming licenses, check with the server before every application start, or assign to a specific computer until their application on that computer explicitly released it. In the latter case if a computer died, or was wiped without the key being released there was no way to ever return it to the licensing server as available again meaning IT had to keep paying for those licenses indefinitely which made them feel really blue. (No there was no sane compromise like a 1 year key checkout or the like.)
The vendors support told IT when that happened to just edit the config files on the licensing server to increment the number of licenses the server thought it had by the number lost to dead systems. After a number of years of doing that, the vendors enforcement division audited my previous employer, sued it for doing what their own support said to do, and won a settlement which resulted in buying a much large number of licenses for a few years. That juiced the vendors lawyers wallets and the vendors for a few years; at the end of the period though my former employer chose to renew zero licenses with the vendor having decided the only rational move was to spend money migrating everything they had with the vendor to a competing platform.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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If the number of licenses managed by the licensing server is editable by the client, why bother having a licensing server in the first place? 
The licensing problem has been nicely solved by the DHCP protocol, among others. Why not adapt that code for distribution of licenses, rather than reinvent the wheel?
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote: If the number of licenses managed by the licensing server is editable by the client, why bother having a licensing server in the first place?
Did any part of my description make you think I considered it a sane setup?
Daniel Pfeffer wrote: The licensing problem has been nicely solved by the DHCP protocol, among others. Why not adapt that code for distribution of licenses, rather than reinvent the wheel?
How well does DHCP work to establish a license between a computer not ever connected to a network, and a licensing server? I don't know how old the offending implementation was, but the software itself pre-dates DHCP and probably needed to work for companies using sneakernet because they didn't want to deal with fiddly coax systems.
But the only rational reason I can think of for not supporting x month license checkouts, optionally with the time limited keys transferred via phone/paper is incompetence or possibly greed.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
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I wasn't criticising you, only the implementer of that miserable excuse for a licensing server.
I did not know that the licensing server that you described predated DHCP.
I didn't take into account systems that are never connected to the company network, but any such system would need a manual solution in any case. For systems connected to the company network, a DHCP-style protocol solves licensing problems very nicely:
- Server discovery
- Time-limited licenses (renewable)
- Permanent licenses
- License reservation
- Transferring additional configuration data with the license
- ...
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Nearly 40% of teams using open source lack the internal skills to test, use, or integrate that software. "It's a world of laughter, a world of tears"
Not going to get that out of my head all week now, thanks me.
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Nearly 40% of teams using open source lack the internal skills to test, use, or integrate that software.
But someone in SO / some cool blog told them that it would work  
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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A certain kind of software developer—or more often, businessperson— likes to talk about a hundred-year programming language, or even a hundred-year framework. That's a long compile time
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The hundred-year programming language will be something the global AI creates to program us. And it'll be an injection, not bits and bytes.
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And here we thought Java was a slow compile.
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Kent, that was an interesting article. Most of the time I skim opinion pieces (since I'm an old fart they tend to piss me off), but this one I read in its entirety.
Nice job. Thank you.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I get lucky sometimes
Thank you so much for the kind words, I'll try to find more stuff for y'all in the future.
TTFN - Kent
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Nickolas Sharp held Ubiquiti’s data ransom while posing as an anonymous hacker, but an internet outage that disrupted his VPN helped the feds catch on to his scheme. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling himself
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Kent Sharkey wrote: but an internet outage that disrupted his VPN
Murphy's law?
Or just plain ol' "karma, b1tch"?
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Google announced plans to add more AI features and improvements to its products. Clippy's coming back, baby!
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Will it write the emails for me?
Or just scrap the content better for google?
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Microsoft is reassuring the public that it still is focused on mixed-reality products, including Microsoft Mesh and the HoloLens 2 headset. I suppose someone needs to be
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Nearly all of the newer programming languages are general-purpose. And that's a problem. Here's why we still need domain-specific languages. It's like you can use them for anything!
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FORTH [^] solved this dilemma ages ago, but, as Yogi Berra said: "Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded."
Is a ghost of FORTH haunting .NET; you be the judge: [^]. [1]
i met "evangelical disciples" of the FORTH language/faith way back in CPM and first Apple daze; you asked questions: you got a recruitment pitch 
[1] if you said LINQ in .NET is an internal DSL, i'd bow to you,
«The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled» Plutarch
modified 5-Feb-23 23:31pm.
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 FORTH was (is, I guess) great for creating DSLs. It’s probably not still true, but I had heard that it was popular for programming the camera systems in Hollywood.
TTFN - Kent
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Sounds like someone who doesn't really understand that domain specific languages are really no longer needed except in a very few situations. Real time programming is one of these, but even in this situation I've seen general purpose operating systems and languages configured to run in a real time environment, and do it successfully.
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Over the past month, Google has been outgunned by malvertisers with new tricks. This just in from the Bing marketing department
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Tiny11 is the original Windows 11 version 22H2 stripped down to the very vitals. The mod requires only 8GB on a drive (stock Windows 11 chews more than 20GB), works on systems with 2GB of RAM, and does not need Trusted Platform Module or Secure Boot. "Day by day he shrinks! Science is baffled!"
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Kent Sharkey wrote: and does not need Trusted Platform Module or Secure Boot.
So... why do the desktop need them?
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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