@Pingu said:
Certainly in the UK I am entitled to sellyour dongle holds the liceneses, you can sell your dongle but you cannot sell licenses iisued to you as person. at least not without permission of the licensor.
See I still think you're trying to have the best of both worlds here, and are just playing with words to try and make something true that isn't. Trying to distinguish between the dongle being the license and holding the license is specious at best. By definition 'license' simply means 'permission' and is completely immaterial, as you've said later in your post. By saying that that permission lives in a specific place you've still made it into an object, even if it's just the code on the dongle.
[quote=cm]
a license can never be a piece of hardware because it is immaterial by design.
a not transferrable license does not imply a piece of hardware would be unloseable or unstealable
Again your logic is very flawed. You say the license cannot be a piece of hardware, by definition (and I completely agree). In that case, although the hardware can be stolen the license can't. If it can be stolen, then it is the hardware.
As I see it this is a very simple issue. I buy permission to use your samples. You have a record that I have that permission, and, by definition, that permission is immaterial / intangible. So in the event of theft, fire, etc, that permission can't have been lost. I fully understand the costs associated with generating the licenses, which I also fully agree the user should pay, but to simply say that permission to use the samples was lost with the dongle is ridiuclous. Either a license is immaterial or it's not.
More to the point, the main purpose of this thread was to point out that Vienna's stand has simly never been spelled out, so customers are left with whatever decision you make on the spur of the moment, and some of those decisions send out the wrong message. For instance, the only reason I can think of for not restoring licenses when a user reports their dongle stolen, is that you simply don't trust them. And I can at least partly understand this viewpoint, because I'm sure there are some customers who would simply report their dongles stolen in order to gain second licenses (although really that's one of the downsides of dongles that Vienna have laid themselves open to by choosing a dongle solution, and shouldn't be our problem). But I can only understand it if you apply it consistently. If you say to a customer whose dongle has been stolen, 'We'll restore your licenses, but only if you buy more of our software,' I'm not sure what the message is anymore. It sounds like 'We don't trust you, and believe you are trying to get duplicate licenses, but we're happy if we get some money,' or, 'We believe your dongle is almost certainly stolen as you've said, but we're going to take the opportunity to take more money.'
Probably this isn't how you want to come across, but there has never been any clear explanation of why you make these slightly random compromise deals, so we're left only with the impression it leaves.