Disappointed in "two computers only" license limit

I'm at a standstill to develop my game right now because I can only use my license on two computers. My two licenses are tied up on my work computer and my home desktop. Now when I travel with my laptop, I cannot use the license I paid for because I am limited to two computers.

Surely there must be an exception to this! I am a former Quest3d user and loathed their hardware dongle, but I could use it on all three computers without problems. Now I feel like I am handcuffed to my two computers if I want to develop in Unity...

Soon, handheld devices and touch tablets will be able to run Unity and then maybe it will force Unity to include 3 license installs, but what do I do until then???

 

This has come up a number of times, including this recent thread:

http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=53599&highlight=licence+license

I think with the advent of the "free" version and that the editor can now be run on both Windows and Mac, that those of us who paid for Unity and continue to pay for upgrades (ie. Pro users) should be able to install the editor on 2 machines per OS.

 

We will see.
I don't see why because there is no platform that would require it.

The platforms on which you can install the editors have been the same since the release of Unity 2.5.

Consoles -> windows
iphone -> osx
rest -> both

So you still need at maximum 2 licenses technically even if you had all addons.


What I personally would like to vote for is that you get 1 additional install per addon you own on top of Unity Pro (freeriders can install it on as many systems as they want), with a maximum of 4 parallel installs

 

That is unless you happen to be developing an application that requires 3 (or more) systems all networked together (such is the case I've run into). In my case I have to build a stand alone, copy it to one of my computers that doesn't have Unity installed and then test it with two other systems running Unity. If there's a network related error involved, it's a total PITA to debug.

I understand the need for copy protection, I also understand why UT made indy free. What I don't understand is why Pro subscribers are limited to the same product license restrictions, after sales support, etc. as those who are getting it for free. :roll:

 

I'd like to have, instead, a bootcamped Mac counting only as 1 since IT IS the same computer so, there's no doubt I'm the one using it...

 

I assume you are aware that you are breaking your license with that, right?
You are allowed to install it on two machines, but you are not allowed to use them in parallel. Just cause unity does not require permanent online connection, thats no reason to ignore the license which you agreed to.

Network Debug level works for the editor as well as builds.
Also the bug is likely bidirectional, so it happens when you are the server as well as when you are the client in such an environment, so you can debug both sides independently.

If you ask yourself about why the Pro licensees are restricted, I'm unsure that you got why indie became free

Indie became free because the effort with the support is higher than what they pay yet it is a must because they payed too, also paying customers especially the low paying one, always have the missunderstanding that they are entitled to top features.
Freeriders on the other side are not entitled to anything legally and I expect especially U3 to show this much stronger with a seriously more "Upgrade pushing" feature delta between free and pro. (beast GI, umbra, shadows, deferred rendering, ... to just name a few of the things we already know)

The other reason is clearly that it spreads much faster this way, thats likely the reason you saw.

Pro on the other side pays the development, with more parallel installations, the risk that people share it within the team becomes significant and I doubt that UT is interested in requiring permanent online connections just to ensure it.

Already the dual install restriction is only there to cover your development box + your notebook likely.
Thats the reasoning behind the majority of all dual install licenses.

 

Chill out Dreamora, no need to be condescending, no I wasn't aware of that. I was under the impression it wasn't an issue. One person, two computers, testing a single application. In fact when I mentioned this issue to Tom he didn't say anything to make me think I was violating anything. No worries though, I'm migrating all my Unity work to a new Windows machine anyways. Thanks to 10.6.4 my Macs now run Unity like a snail making them pretty close to useless.

 

I think the theory behind the two license rule is to prevent piracy. Theoretically someone could post their pro licensee on the internet and everyone could use it without a two install rule in effect. That being said, couldn't you remove the license from one computer so you can use it on the other, or is that against the terms? (I really don't know, I'm a free user)

 

You can do it but you must request the removal through the support, you can not do it yourself in any way.

Moving licenses is no problem, but you can't have more than 2 active installations


@bigkahuna: I didn't assume it was your intend
but people especially new ones / young once get strange ideas ...

sad to hear you had such problems.
While my performance suffered as anyones due to the graphics driver kill out, I did not have nearly that bad problems actually. On the other hand, my main dev machine has been a windows machine for years and for 18 months or so it has been a Core i7 machine with a GTX280 and first Vista64 now Win7 64 (and that at a price smaller than the cheapest imac, without screens naturally)

 

Could someone from Unity please acknowledge that maybe this policy needs to change? If not, then recommend me a way to work in Unity on my laptop, desktop and work desktop. I am a paying customer, at the very least, my suggestion should be considered...

I can't be the only one who works on more than two computers!

...Or am I???

 

You're not alone. This topic came up a long while back and at that point UT claimed that they would work with those developers who ran into this situation. They weren't clear on the specifics of what that meant, but when I attempted to contact them on the topic they were silent. Half a dozen emails sent, all unanswered.

Like I said, I fully understand the need for copy protection and I fully appreciate UT's need to control licenses and make a profit. I may be alone in this opinion but for the life of me don't understand why Pro and Free users have been lumped into the same scheme for licensing and after sales support.

I much prefer the direction StoneTrip has taken with Shiva3D. You can install and use as many copies of the editor (Free PLE) as you wish. The Unlimited license you purchase allows you to build the application on a single computer. So for my application where I want to test, debug and edit on 3 networked computers, this would be perfect. Additionally, free PLE users only get after sales support via the forums, while paying Unlimited customers have access to support via email.

 

I suggest contacting UT support before posting complaints or whatever on this forum... I've found support to be very helpful and reasonable in these situations.

 

2 thumbs up

but also agree with bigkahuna that with the growing amount of freeriders, UT might have to think about how to handle the paying customers (as they are the ones likely to buy addons too), although I don't have anything to be unhappy so far. Support is commonly responsive and always competent

 

Until recently, I would have agreed with this 100%. But on this particular topic I would have to say Unity Technologies has been neither helpful nor reasonable. I won't go into details publicly, but hopefully the UT employee I spoke with on this topic will read this: As a loyal, paying customer I would appreciate at least the courtesy of a reply to my emails.

 

Right-- we realize this is problematic for some of you, which is why we are in fact working on an automatic license activation and deactivation system so you can manage this yourself.

Indeed our 2 installation per computer policy is intended to prevent abuse, but with the new system you will be able to manage this yourself.

Of course if you are migrating your license from one computer to another (on an infrequent basis) you can always email support@unity3d.com with your serial number and we will gladly do that.

Cheers,

--
Caitlyn Meeks
Product Specialist, Sales Team
+1 415 820 4275

Unity Technologies
50 Osgood Place, Ste 220
San Francisco, CA 94133

 

great to hear ...
is it alreay possible to get a rough date when this will be available ?

 

I it would be nice being able to deactivate ourselves when replacing hardware, without having to email support.

However, this will only cover that case, but there's another issue why 2 activations is not enough, it was a limit that was understandable when Unity was Mac only so, you could use it on a desktop+laptop at the same time, within the license's limits.

Since Unity now supports Windows as well, that system should be changed to recognise the computer it's the same, when running under Bootcamp or OSX, and use only 1 activation.

There's no possible abuse in this case: the PC it's the same and it's either running Windows or OSX at once but, if installing in Windows+OSX could count as 1, everybody with a notebook could fully use its license and the Unity cross-platform capability without requiring Unity to switch to a 4 activations policy!

Or, let's put it in a different way:

It's just not fair that a team of 2 or even more people could use Unity with a single license, perhaps keep deactivating and reactivating machines on the upcoming user-controlled deactivation method, and a single user with 2 Macs bootcamped can't.

 

Caitlyn, thank you very much for the reply, this sounds promising! Is there any chance this makes it into the Unity 3 release?

 

it is, but as long as unity does not require internet connection to use or from time to time to upload usage stats, it won't be detectable that such missuse happens ...
And I am unsure if UT really wants to add such a thing (though it would have to happen for granted if users were given the right to transfer licenses on an ongoing base not just once per X weeks per installation

 

I don't think it is required to have Internet connection all the time, as activate the product need Internet, so only need Internet connection when execute un-register option. Without un-register, it is not possible to register another machine. That's pretty fine.

 

The problem is that if the unregister requires internet, how are you handling system breakdown?

Also, right now you can just backup the license that handles the activation to fast switch between them (did that to trial iphone without perstering my pro 2 years ago), that whole licensing system is totally useless for such a switch system.

naturally, also offline / manual registration will no longer be available at all .. good luck trying to sell THAT to customers (I know enough devs that will see hell freeze before their dev machine ever gets inet access for obvious reasons)

 

If you want to discuss what is "fair" according to the Unity EULA and current support policies, consider this:

A team of 10 freelance / indy developers all use Unity "free" to develop a game. They are independent companies all working in unison on a community game project. They paid nothing for the software. They paid nothing for tech support via the forums. They, as a group, net just less than $1,000,000 income that year, but when divided up, earn less than $100,000 individually. This is perfectly legal according to the EULA (as far as I understand it).

Whereas I, a single indy "Pro" developer, cannot test my application simultaneously on two machines without having to buy a second (or third) copy of Pro. Further, for my $1,500 investment, I get the same level of tech support as the team of 10 freebie developers. In fact it could be argued that the 10 member freebie developer team actually gets 10x as much support as I do.

 

Your math kahuna, your math ... 10* 0 != 10 ;-)
They get indefinitely more support han you (and I)

While I understand that grief, though it also must be understood that those 10 didn't get all features in U2 and in Unity 3 they are significantly cut (no deferred, no umbra *not even on the non-pro mobile licenses anymore*, no postfx, no shadow, no render textures, no beast GI, no plugins, no VCS, ...) and I expect that each new feature addition release will further raise the gap

So freely using this board and having "support" this way will be the only benefit they will get for free when compared to pro over time.

 

Basically with both in-software and web based control for activation and deactivation I can't see any problem for that, Internet connection is need when perform activation/deactivation.

If the customer does not have Internet connection I think that customer would not interest in that control.

 

My gripe isn't so much what the freebie user gets for free, it's what I don't get after paying, and that is technical support. Heck, Unity Tech won't even give us paying customers a separate section of the forums.

 

which makes sense as the board software in use right now has no such knowledge and I doubt UT has a webservice accessable place to check if someone is registered.

in addition licensee name <-> usernames would require binding (likely through your license)


I doubt we will get a private area ever, thats something restricted to console licenses if at all.
all other engines I know that are not focused at hiding the shortcomings of their engine went the other way round, opening up the licensee only boards

 

This is a much older subject than you would imagine.
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=34066&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

I am glad they are working on a new licensing system. I will be happy with the ability to activate / deactivate as needed. I too have 2 laptops and 2 desktops, 1 MacBook Pro, 1 PC Laptop, 1 iMac 24" and 1 PC desktop, when I am on the road I need to test on the Mac and PC, when I am in the home office, I need to use the two desktop machines. Right now I settled for just the PC laptop until U3 is released then I will install U3 on the iMac which will use my second license. This is for the iPhone, the PC for the Andriod.

I would be happy to settle with a Mac for the iPhone license, a PC for the Android license, then a mix for the Pro license, but it simply doesn't work that way.

 

umm... I think I must be missing something here.
3ds Max requires a purchased license for every seat, right? So if you have a laptop and a desktop, that's two copies of Max. I think.

If that's right (it's certainly what I've been assuming for all these years) then Unity's way is twice as good as Max. Woohoo!

I think I should re-read the Max license. It's been years.

 

If you are on subscription you are actually allowed to install and license a second Max seat on your home computer, with the same limitation that you do not run both installs at the same time.

By the way the Max licensing ( FlexNet ) is by far more intrusive and problematic than Pace, which is used by Unity. Flexnet simply connects online to Autodesks servers if it thinks something in your licensing is wrong/out of sync. Ohh yes - and Flexnet now is used by almost ALL Autodesk products (Maya, XSI , Inventor , Autocad etc.. ). And Adobe uses it too for their products...

 

If I'm allowed to *install* on 2 computers at the same time, but I'm not allowed to *use* it on 2 computers at the *same* time, it clearly means the only thing not acceptable, is having 2 people working on 2 computers at the same time, not that I can't work (for example) on a desktop during the week and on a laptop over the weekend.

I can't see anything in the EULA that explicitely forbids 2 developers sharing a serial, especially in case the license is sold to a company and both people are part of it.

It only says you can't use the same Unity license simultaneously which means, as long as they don't run at the same time, it should be even ok to share an installation with different people.

So, basically, it's a SEAT license: it doesn't matter who's sitting there, as long only 1 person AT TIME is using the "seat".

With my proposal of having a bootcamped computer counting as 1 activation, nothing would change, since the same computer can't obviously be used in OSX and Windows at the same time with Bootcamp.

This way, a single developer who has 2 computers under Bootcamp, will not be penalized, since he can't obviously use more than 1 installation at the same time anyway.

 

Just wanting to chime in with the "please raise the install limit" crowd.

When my new iMac arrives (hopefully today), I'll be owning three machines that I all use for development, more or less. The usual main/test/notebook triplet.

I understand the necessity to avoid abuse, but it should not go so far as to burden paying customers.

On the other hand, my reply from support indicated that installing the free version on the test machine would be ok. So far, I had assumed the "do not mix licenses" restriction would prohibit that.

 

Sounds like a policy change as when I asked the same question a few months ago I was told "no" to mixing licenses.

 

Is this still in the works?