I just don’t understand Red-Gate

I’ve been meaning to post this for quite some time, but I got hung up with a few things that took my attention.  However, I think it’s important to post this update to the Red-Gate licensing post because they’ve really gone out of their way to make things right.  The question is… have they succeeded?  Here are the first 2 posts on the topic:

Use Red-Gate’s backup… and Go to Jail???

Red-Gate Answers Back

In short, Red-Gate has changed their license to better reflect what they intended (I suppose), and they are no longer saying that you cannot transfer your license to another server if you need to.  What they’re saying now is that you can transfer it once, and if you need to do it more, you can ask their permission.  Only ONCE?  Sorry guys, I just don’t get it.  Why once?  A simple mistake could put me in the throws of Red-Gate support explaining how I deployed it to the wrong server by accident, or how our strategy changed all of a sudden.  And yeah, the license does say that they won’t turn down any reasonable request, but still, I shouldn’t have to do that, should I?

The problem is, I’m not sure they’ve really addressed all that much in their new license.  I mean, at least you can get permission from them, but how do you know what’s going to change the license on a box?  You’ve still got the same problem you always did, only now at least you know how many activations you’ve had on a given box… assuming that you’ve written a little repository to keep up with that kinda thing.  See, that’s what I mean though;  this is just getting harder to manage, because now I’ve got to write an application to keep track of all my activations, and that’s extra work.  I’m assuming that you already know the reasons why you wouldn’t use excel for such a thing.  Oh, I suppose you could half-ass it and just fly by the seat of your pants and not record any of your activations, and just take them as they come up.  But I know none of my readers would be that sloppy, so you’ll have to write something that lets you enter in the keys and manage them when you decommission servers and throw your Red-Gate licenses back into the general pool.  If I were you, since they’re in the UK, I would have 3 categories of keys:  those currently assigned to a server, those in the general pool waiting to be assigned, and Olivers.  Olivers are the ones where you’re about to have to go beg for some more.

Anyway, for better or for worse, at least you know where you stand on your licenses now, so some good has come of this.  Is it the best you could hope for?  Probably not, but it’s a good start.  If you guys are still sore about it, then be sure to tell Red-Gate, I’m sure they’ll listen if enough of you complain. 

And as usual, here’s the link to the license, and I’ve pasted the relevant portion here.

All software is licensed on a per computer basis. For example, if you wish to use SQL Backup on more than one computer you will need an additional license for each additional computer on which the software is downloaded and installed. Notwithstanding this, your license may be transferred once between computers or servers, for example where you are decommissioning or upgrading those computers or servers. If you exceed that number of activations, you will need to contact Red Gate Software to obtain their consent to the transfer. Red Gate Software will not unreasonably withhold their consent to your request.