I know that many of the 'challenges' brought against the theory group were actually unfounded because they turned out to be students using their legally licensed versions or other cases of personally held licenses. I got the impression that they went after any use that did not tally up against a restricted list of license servers. The theory group was accused of being one of the worst culprits of illegal use but as far as I know there was only a couple of true cases where students were using cracked copies. There was however, a long list of machines that had to be inspected and I don't know if the results of that exercise was passed back to Wolfram and this 'list' corrected to only include actual, documented cases of illegal use. Perhaps someone in the department has this information and can compile a number eg of how many illegal copies were being used and compare with Wolfram's original claims. Carlo On 14/04/2011 17:16, Robert Kingham wrote:
Just a thought...
Has anyone checked the authenticity of Wolfram's claims of illegal copies of Mathematica being used here? Might they be (or have been) counting personally procured copies (e.g. the Home Edition) on, say, peoples' laptops when run here?
*What happens if I were physically at home, but logged onto the college's VPN* (which I do a lot to, e.g., send emails via icex, log onto HPC, remote desktop my workstation, ssh my workstation, access my college home directory (I think), etc.) and then launch a personal copy of Mathematica? *Would this start a red light flashing at Wolfram's lawyers HQ?*
Is it just Imperial that has been targeted by Wolfram, or have other universities been lent on too?
I guess people know this but for those that don't (like me 30 mins. ago) - Single User license via ICT - *£145 per annum* - Individual license for a Faculty/Staff member direct from Wolfram costs *£860* (inc. VAT?) - The "Hobbyist" Home Ed. costs *£195 exc. VAT* - The Student Editions costs *£96 inc. VAT* (or even *£24* for the "Semester Edition")
Cheers,
Robert
On 14 Apr 2011, at 14:14, Dave Clements wrote:
On 14 Apr 2011, at 13:18, Mannall, Adrian B wrote:
For clarity I need to make you all aware that the following applies ...
Personally purchased or licensed software must not be installed on College owned systems and vice versa - thus if college funds purchase the license then it can only be installed on a College owned system - this rule applies for all software.
In this instance I was referring to a license purchased with fund that the individual controls themselves, presumably going through the college purchasing system if Wolfram allow that. It would be both college owned and on a college owned machine, albeit one largely managed by the individual.
Given that Wolfram are claiming the illegal use was perpetrated by machines which fall into both College owned and personally owned systems then I foresee further issues if someone uses a personally licensed copy of Mathematica from a personal system whilst on the College network and there is no College license in place!
So anyone visiting the college with a legal Mathematica on their laptop who uses it here will cause a problem - conference delegates, visiting academics, rich undergraduates, graduate students who've bought it at student rates...? That sounds perverse.
Dave _______________________________________________ Physics-Departmental-Computing mailing list Physics-Departmental-Computing@imperial.ac.uk <mailto:Physics-Departmental-Computing@imperial.ac.uk> https://mailman.ic.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/physics-departmental-computing
-- ============================================================================= Dr Robert J. Kingham -------------------- Plasma Physics Group, Tel: +44 (0)207-5947637 Room 724, Blackett Laboratory,Fax: +44 (0)207-5947658 Imperial College London, E-mail:rj.kingham@imperial.ac.uk <mailto:rj.kingham@imperial.ac.uk> London SW7 2AZ, UK. Web: www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/rj.kingham <http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/rj.kingham> =============================================================================