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Congratulations…
We’re excited to announce that Chris Shaw, the SSWUG.ORG site manager, has been selected as a Microsoft SQL Server MVP. Chris works hard to keep refining SSWUG’s features, presents at conference, on shows on SSWUG, helps out at user group meetings and all sorts of other things in the community – Congratulations Chris!
Annoying(!) Licensing with Some SQL Server Products
If you’re out looking at different tools and products to use with your SQL Server, be sure you understand the licensing you’re purchasing with those tools. I’ve been seeing a worrisome trend lately with different software makers actually licensing the software for a particular time period (typically a year) and then requiring that you renew your license.
This isn’t cool. I get the need for support contracts on an on-going basis. I get having to get upgrades and such. I don’t get being forced into the renewal of a product that hasn’t changed, hasn’t been substantially upgraded or… heck, I don’t understand being forced to get a new license just to keep my software running, period. I’m not expecting free updates, free support or anything else, but in my mind, if I’ve paid for the software license, I’m good to go with that version of the software.
I’ve seen this from a couple of vendors now – and it’s pretty stinky. If you see this on a contract, license agreement, etc. for some software you’re considering, I humbly suggest you think twice. Talk to the software firm, get a license that, once you’ve paid for it, you’re not going to re-pay for it in a year. If they won’t do it, won’t give you a real license, be sure you’re going into the relationship with both eyes open and that you know how much you should budget for license renewals and when they’ll be coming due.
We’ve seen this on our servers, and on servers for a couple of client systems now – tools that were doing automated maintenance/management of the databases "expired" (not trials) and we didn’t realize it until we went to investigate and find out how things were running (you do do standard "it’s still working" sweeps, right?) – only to find out the applications were, indeed, NOT running.
Boo hiss.
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