Time Based Evaluation Software

[SteveChandler]

For all NI software that has an evaluation license available I propose that instead of a number of days the evaluation would be good for a number of hours. Whenever the software detects user activity it will start to decrement the hours remaining. If no activity is detected after some number of minutes the timer will stop decrementing.

I installed the Test Stand evaluation and ran out of time even though I only got to play with it for maybe a few hours. I did get an extension from our sales representative. I am hoping I will get the time to thouroughly check out this software before trying to get funds from the boss.

This idea is not specific to LabVIEW but all NI software for which evaluation licenses are available. I am posting this here since the LabVIEW idea exchange is the most visible.

[dthor]

Not a bad idea, kudos.

However, it may be kind of exploitable:

Let's say I have some code already made, be it from a friend or school or work, which I need to use at a different site. This code only needs to run once every few hours or days (perhaps it's a datalogger) and it only runs for a ew seconds at a time. I do not have a LV licence, so I download the eval. To get around the eval timeframe, I write a shell/bash/other script that runs the LV code whenever I need the data recorded.

I've just extended a 24 usage-hour licence to something on the order of years.

The NI workaround for this specific exploit would be to keep the delta-time evaluation period in addition to the usage-time eval period. The delta-time would need to be increased, perhaps to 60 days. The eval would end up being something like "24hrs of use or 60 days, which ever comes first."

[SteveChandler]

People will always find exploits. But I would be fine with a "24hrs or 60 days" type of thing as long as the number of days was more. I was thinking something on the order of six months or 50hrs. The idea is to give people who have lots of stuff to do the chance to really evaluate the software. As it is you run the eval once and it expires in 30 days even if you never run the program again.

But in the case of Test Stand or LabVIEW the timer would start any time you make a menu selection, add, remove or modify a step, subvi, focus the front panel, etc. Anything that indicates you are actively using the development environment will start the timer. Maybe a time remaining indicator can be shown on the title bar.