Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:52 pm

eLicense is moving hosting companies today. During this time, the eLicense servers might be down or intermittent. If local ISPs have their DNS addresses cached, it might take longer for them to update to the new IP addresses of www.elicense.com. eLicense is moving to their own hosting company to get away from the recent reliability problems with their old hosting company. So, after the move their servers should be even more reliable than in the past. Sorry for any inconvience and thanks for your patience.

(Zugg Software is not affiliated with eLicense/ViaTech. I am merely passing this information on to our customers)

Apprentice Joined: 29 May 2002 Posts: 121

Thanks for the update, Zugg.

One question about the elicense. Why would my license expire if I have registered my version of Zmud 6.62?

I went to the elicense folder under control panel and I have three version of my license for the past few updates of Zmud. Each one has unlimited execution, etc but they all have an expiration date of 90 days when the license was installed.

Doesn't make sense unless this was intended to fight piracy such as requiring a periodic relicense.

Thanks for your continued help and support of Zmud.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

The expiration is more meant to protect users. It provides that if you HD crashes, or you reinstall windows without unlicensing then the license will automattically be released. This makes it highly unlikely that you will use up all 3 licenses on a single computer.

Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 6:35 am

Looks like eLicense is still down. This is significantly longer than they had told me they planned to be down, so obviously something unexpected has happened. I don't know if this is a simple problem with the DNS address not getting propogated across the Internet for their new IP address, or if it's actually a problem with their server. If they are still down in the morning, I'll be giving them a call.

Again, sorry for the problem. I'm as upset as anyone because I don't make any money when eLicense is down. But I'm afraid it's totally out of my control. eLicense handles licensing for a lot of big companies, and while the weekend is the "slow" period for those customers, it's the peak period for zMUD users. But I had no control over when they did their move.

Newbie Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Posts: 7

Not to kick you while you're down, but this whole elicense business is precisely why I have not purchased a copy of Zmud. Without a doubt, Zmud is the best MUD client out there - the next best competitor doesn't even support bindable keys beyond the number pad.

However, I will not tolerate software that "phones home" or depends on an external, online source to operate continuously. As it is, until the policy on elicence (et. al.) changes, or someone else finally creates a decent client for action MU*s, I'll keep using ol Zmud 3.x (freebie version). :/

Beginner Joined: 03 Nov 2002 Posts: 21

i don't like how i have to re-register zmud, i've owned a copy for over 3 years and it annoys the hell out of me whenever i have to re-register, only to find the server is down for whatever reason. i just wanna play my game and relax. :/ But if this new host isn't as crappy as the last one, then i'll forgive you all. This is the 2nd time in my experiance that the e-licence server was down when i had to re-register zmud. :P

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

quote:
Originally posted by Niax

i don't like how i have to re-register zmud, i've owned a copy for over 3 years and it annoys the hell out of me whenever i have to re-register, only to find the server is down for whatever reason. i just wanna play my game and relax. :/ But if this new host isn't as crappy as the last one, then i'll forgive you all. This is the 2nd time in my experiance that the e-licence server was down when i had to re-register zmud. :P

The alternative is that the licenses don't expire after 90 days. If you lose your 3 licenses then you'll be much more sorry than having to wait a day for the server to come online again.

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 4379 Location: USA

Neither zMUD nor eLicense phone home to operate continuously. The only time eLicense access the Internet is to get your license. After that, it never phones home.

Please, let's not start with the whole eLicense argument again. This always seems to degenarate into a flame war and the conclusion we always arrive to is that eLicense is here to stay. As soon as there is no piracy on the Internet, eLicense is gone.

Newbie Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Posts: 7

Then I'm saying myself and people like me will not purchase Zmud *because* of the eLicense aspect. Superior program... crappy authentication scheme. :/

It really is a shame. That's all.

Newbie Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Posts: 7

Let me clarify: I want to be able to depend on the software I use. Cost is a minor issue, as long as we're not talking about sane (not $100's) amounts. This means that when I want to use the software, it will work. Having to depend on an external server for use is extremely detrimental. Think of it as an anti-feature... I do.
I also want to use it how I use it. This means that if I have multiple systems at home (I do), and I want to put it on multiple systems, I can... as long as only one copy is in use at any given time; this logically adheres to the "book rule."
The last thing is due to what I'd call a trust issue. I don't enjoy being treated like a crook, which is exactly how I feel when people bring up the "piracy" issue. There exist elaborate anti-eLicense proxy cracks already for some recent versions (6+) of zmud; I don't use them because I perfer legit software... but in this case, I won't buy a recent copy of zmud, either.

Just giving Zugg some feedback in what seemed the perfect context for it. No flames.

Beginner Joined: 13 Jul 2002 Posts: 16 Location: USA

quote:
Originally posted by Brains

Let me clarify: I want to be able to depend on the software I use. Cost is a minor issue, as long as we're not talking about sane (not $100's) amounts. This means that when I want to use the software, it will work. Having to depend on an external server for use is extremely detrimental. Think of it as an anti-feature... I do.
I also want to use it how I use it. This means that if I have multiple systems at home (I do), and I want to put it on multiple systems, I can... as long as only one copy is in use at any given time; this logically adheres to the "book rule."

First of all, when you purchase zMUD, you are allowed 3 different licenses to use on 3 separate computers. These licenses can even be used at the same time, and each one is registered with eLicense which ensures that the process works smoothly. You aren't limited to just one computer, and the online verification is only done once every 90 days, not every time you run it.

In any case, the recent trend for many applications is to communicate with a master server. It's not really any different from using Windows Update to get operating system updates, or from virus protection programs downloading new virus lists, or from Halflife and many other games checking your CD key every time you play a multiplayer server. Just doesn't make much sense to refuse to use software based on the fact it connects to a separate server.

Sure, a server might be down once in awhile, but in this case eLicense is actually moving to a MORE STABLE server... so why is everyone complaining about it?

Newbie Joined: 07 Sep 2003 Posts: 7

I'm not going to degenerate this into a back and forth yea-nay argument. *I* want to use the software I've purchased in a manner as *I* see fit, not limited by arbitrary rules thought up by someone who is not me. I don't want to use a CD when I play Morrowind! I want to throw a copy of some software - in an installed state - to take with me on a CD. (PuTTY, nester, Mozilla Firebird, Zmud 3.freebie, Xnews, mIRC, and many more software programs can handle this.) I don't want to depend on an external source in order to use my software: I have NO idea how long these eLicense folks will be around. I've certainly only seen one package that uses them, and I've bleach boxes full of software. Doesn't inspire confidence. I'm using programs from many companies that have long gone under... I do not want to depend on software that I can't guarantee the usability of in the next two years.

Yes, it is different than other software that "phones home." I download virus definition packages. I don't use Windows Update (myriad of reasons). Everything on my system occurs because I initiate an action that causes the occurrance. This is even different from Half-Life authentication because I'm already connecting to WON to browse servers. eLicense is an unrelated third party. *That* is the difference. I don't like it one bit.

One thing I just HAVE to quote is: "These licenses can even be used at the same time, and each one is registered with eLicense which ensures that the process works smoothly."
Note, however, that for the past bit of time, this process has not been smooth.

That's all I'll say.

Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 6:53 pm

OK people, let's cut the flaming. I'm as pissed off as anyone here. You want to come over here on the weekend and do all of my support email for me? You people obviously have no clue at all how this works. Stuff breaks...networks go down. How about a couple of weeks ago when everything was down due to that denial of service attack? You going to blame that on me too?

The only people that this outage effects are people who's license expired in the last day or so. zMUD ONLY contacts eLicense once every 90 days and only when you specifically click the Install License button. zMUD DOES NOT contact eLicense in the background without your knowledge. All of this stuff is explained in detail in the LICENSE.RTF file THAT YOU AGREED TO when you first ran zMUD. As others have said, we put the 90-day expiration in FOR YOUR PROTECTION! Without this auto-renewal, you'd eventually use up all 3 licenses due to hardware/Windows problems and then you'd be stuck without a license and there would be nothing I could do about it. With the 90-day autorenewal, any license lost is automatically recovered for your reuse. Yes, it means you have to reactivate your license every 90 days. We thought about making it longer than 90 days, but CUSTOMERS voted that 90 days was the best compromise between asking too often and having all 3 licenses lost within a 90 day period.

And let's not get into the entire copy protection issue again. It's VERY simple. Without copy protection like eLicense there would be NO ZMUD! I would have stopped working on zMUD 4 years ago if it wasn't for eLicense. And if you aren't going to buy zMUD because of eLicense, then that's fine, so why are you posting to these forums? Go troll somewhere else. You find a better copy protection scheme, then tell me about it. I've looked...there isn't one. And if you want to see worse copy protection schemes, all you need to do is look at Windows XP and Office XP.

Or, perhaps you'd like me to get rid of copy protection and just charge you for every upgrade like other companies do? Have you ever thought about what it takes for me to offer free updates for life? Most companies can't do that. The eLicense system enabled me to do it and to stay in business.

Anyway, enough venting. It's the weekend, I'm supposed to be taking a day off so that I can get some good programming done this week, and yet here I am dealing with support email from users who are pissed off because they can't MUD for one day. So go ahead and keep posting your flames and pissing me off even more. I'm sure that's going to help eLicense get their servers working.

As an actual update from eLicense: During their transition to a new hosting network this weekend, their main router blew up. A replacement is being shipped from Cisco as we speak. They have put their spare in place, but it doesn't handle the load balancing that their main router normally handles and they are having to juggle IP addresses. Unfortunately, it takes time for new IP addresses to propogate across the Internet. The machine www1.elicense.com is actually up and available. If you want to try to point "elicense.com" to "www1.elicense.com" on your system, then feel free to mess with that. However, the Internet should have the IP address for "elicense.com" propogated within another hour or so. Your mileage may vary since some ISPs violate DNS rules and cache addresses longer than they should. eLicense is doing the best that they can to get their systems up and running. Zugg Software is a very small company and eLicense has lots of big customers who are pounding on them to get their system up. The people at elicense have been working on this all weekend without any sleep. This kind of stuff happens, and if you can't accept that or give them a break, then go get a real life.

Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2003 6:58 pm

Brains, if you are not a zMUD user, then get off this forum before I ban you. This thread is for information regarding the eLicense outage and not for you to complain about licensing.

If you HAVE bought zMUD, then you agreed to the License Agreement where this is all described in detail. If you agreed to it, then you are bound by it, just like with any other software License Agreement. If you don't like the License Agreement, then don't buy the software and go use something else and stop complaining here.

Yes, eLicense is a 3rd party. But I have a contract with them. If they ceased to exist, then I am entitled to run their software on my own servers. So, you are never going to be stuck with a program you can't run for a significant period of time.

Apprentice Joined: 29 May 2002 Posts: 121

Elicense.com just came up for those who are needed to renew their licenses.... Thanks again for your assistance Zugg.

Beginner Joined: 01 Sep 2002 Posts: 27

I once spent $20 on software that was licensed ONLY to the computer it was installed on. When my HD died, I would have had to buy another license.
That really put eLicense into perspective for me.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

I love zmud.
I love zugg's work on zmud.
I love elicense for making it possible for zugg to continue his work on zmud.

Fin.

Enchanter Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 698

I love Zugg's business practices.
I love Rainchild's acknowledgement of what's important.
I love elicense's commitment to improving its services.

Apprentice Joined: 16 Dec 2002 Posts: 103

quote:
Originally posted by Kjata

Neither zMUD nor eLicense phone home to operate continuously. The only time eLicense access the Internet is to get your license. After that, it never phones home.

The fact of the matter is that the situation is much more grim than even that. The truth is that e-license enables the content owner (Zugg) to essentially reach into your machine and disable your ability to use the zmud software that you purchased. The process is called "Dynamic Digital Rights Management," and it is a process protected under new DRM/DMCA legislation. Ignorance and happy apathy on all of our parts have allowed legislation to be passed that completely revamps our notions of software ownership.

I don't think there is anyone here that would be consciously gracious about allowing MS the ability to be able to, for example, surreptitiously (via. unsolicited internet transaction) shutdown your copy of Windows because your version is no longer supported and you have chosen not to upgrade. Well, folks, this is exactly what we're talking about here. Via's e-licensing software has enabled zMud to be able to do the exact same stuff.

These are the facts about e-licensing. Do I really think it will ever pose problems for my enjoyment of zMud? Probably not. Do I believe Zugg's assertions that he depends on it to generate revenue? Probably. Do I nonetheless feel that it is threatening to my rights to rent, least, license, or purchase intellectual property? Absolutely.

The bottom line is that e-licensing is designed to assist the developers, not the users. I mean, really... if there weren't issues (like privacy and purchase protection) other than just developers' ability to turn a profit at stake, then _all_ of the software that you own would have similar schemes!

Wanderer Joined: 13 Aug 2001 Posts: 51 Location: USA

So why do you use zMUD? And if you don't, then why are you here?

You don't like it, then don't use it. It's pretty simple. No one is forcing you to use zMUD.

MASTER Joined: 28 Nov 2000 Posts: 4817 Location: USA

quote:
The bottom line is that e-licensing is designed to assist the developers, not the users.

Well, of course. This is true of all copy-protection methods. They are all designed for the benefit of software producers. They all inconvenience users. Hopefully, they inconvenience the illegal users far more than the legitimate ones. Most people dislike them, but without with them there would be little or no professional development of software because unprotected software is too easy to steal.

I'd say you've made your point. You don't like eLicense, but you don't have anything to offer in its place. That's no excuse for using Zugg's own forum to discourage his potential customers and especially doesn't excuse your practice of dredging up every positive topic you can find in order to ensure they end with a diatribe against eLicense and Zuggsoft.

We all understand. You don't like eLicense. You wish it would go away. There's really no need to belabor the point.

If you were attempting to be constructive, nobody would mind. But then, if were trying to be constructive you wouldn't need to continue criticizing eLicense and Zuggsoft several times a day. In fact, if you were attempting to be constructive you'd be doing this by private correspondence with the only person in a position to change it.

So let me summarize once again, just so you can be sure I understood your point and you don't need to repeat it anymore.
hatespyware doesn't like eLicense

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

I hate coffee. It tastes bad.

I don't think Zugg should use coffee in the production of Zmud because coffee is designed to assist developers in staying up until all hours working and that disadvantages users because they can never get hold of him first thing in the morning...

Are we sufficiently off topic yet to allow a locking? Razz

Apprentice Joined: 16 Dec 2002 Posts: 103

quote:
Originally posted by LightBulb
If you were attempting to be constructive, nobody would mind.

My intent, in this case, was to bring to light some of the more insidious capabilities of the e-license system. Someone else made mention of the software being able to "phone home" or something, and was told _mistakenly_ by a person of authority that the software was more or less inept. Getting the facts straight is constructive.

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 9:19 am

quote:
Originally posted by Rainchild

I hate coffee. It tastes bad.

I don't think Zugg should use coffee in the production of Zmud because coffee is designed to assist developers in staying up until all hours working and that disadvantages users because they can never get hold of him first thing in the morning...

Are we sufficiently off topic yet to allow a locking?

Don't forget your Bawls, Penguins, and Chai as well Razz

Though, caffine is a requirement for programming.

quote:
Originally posted by hatespyware

My intent, in this case, was to bring to light some of the more insidious capabilities of the e-license system.

I don't think your intent is at question here, it's your method of achieving your goal.

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 4379 Location: USA

I never said the software was incable of phoning home (how the heck should I know, I didn't program it), all I said is that it doesn't do it. That is not mistaken. Here is Zugg saying it himself:

quote:
zMUD DOES NOT contact eLicense in the background without your knowledge. All of this stuff is explained in detail in the LICENSE.RTF file THAT YOU AGREED TO when you first ran zMUD.

This is just a few replys above by the way.