StrataBlog

Updates and licensing

Many of you will be receiving a licence expiry notice when you start StrataBugs. This is beause we try to align our renewals of Maintenance and Support payments to the calendar year end. If you need to refresh your licence, get in touch. This article explains our licensing policy.

What is a licence?

StrataBugs is licenced software rather than freeware, or open source. You need a valid licence file to run the application.

Why am I receiving this message when I previously bought a permanent licence?

We no longer issue permanent licences. This is to align with our policy of issuing new licences only on a subscription basis, and the removal of the hardware key (dongle) as a form of licensing. Since the release of version 3.0, all licences are “soft” licences and linked to a host machine. This might be an individual machine or a licence server which provide licenses to one or more simultaneous users. If you, or your organisation have previously purchased a permanent licence and have continued to support us through Maintenance and Support annual payaments, then you will be entitled to a renewed licence for your host machine(s) or server indefintely, and the licence will grant access to the latest versions and udpates.

Older versions of StrataBugs that use the hardware key are being phased out, the last version that could use it was v2.1.1. We no longer support versions prior to v2.1, but will assist if you have a database from a previous version that needs conversion to the latest.

If you have previously bought a permanent licence and want to continue to use the software unsupported, you may do so, but are not entitled to any updates or troubleshooting help. In this case a new licence will be issued annualy for your current machine, for the version that you have paid for, or the latest version applicable at the end of the last maintenance and support period.

If you have bought a subscription licence for a fixed period for longer than a year, a new licence will be issued annually. If the subscription period is a year or less, then if the subscription is not renewed you will no longer be able to run the application. Note that your database remains your property and as long as it’s not deleted, can be accessed from future subscriptions at any time (subject to future database upgrade requirements).

Can I change my StrataBugs computer?

If you change your StrataBugs computer we will issue a new licence for the new machine after you have advised us of the new hostid codes.

When you send the codes, copy and paste the text into an email, not a screenshot of the codes – this will ensure that the codes are not mistyped when we issue the licence file.