FlexNet Publisher (formerly known as FLEXlm) is a software

license manager A software license manager is a software management tool used by Independent software vendors or by end-user organizations to control where and how software products are able to run. License managers protect software vendors from losses due to ...

from

Flexera Software Flexera is an American computer software company based in Itasca, Illinois. History On 1 April 2008, Macrovision sold its software division to the Thoma Bravo investment fund, which became Acresso Software. Macrovision subsequently changed i ...

which implements license management and is intended to be used in corporate environments to provide floating licenses to multiple end users of computer software. Computer software can be licensed in a variety of ways. A license to use a piece of software may be associated with a specific machine (''node-locked''), permitting it to only run on that machine (node in a

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

); alternatively, a company may buy a pool of ''floating'' licenses and these licenses may be allocated dynamically to machines, a license being ''checked-out'' when a user begins using the software on any given machine and ''checked-in'' when the user finishes using the software. In this way, for example, a company might buy a pool of 50 licenses but support a user community of hundreds of occasional users of the software (so long as no more than 50 users ever want to use the software simultaneously).

History

FLEXlm was originally a joint development by GLOBEtrotter Software and Highland Software in 1988. Highland's rights to the FLEXlm product were acquired by GLOBEtrotter in 1994; Highland continued as a reseller of 3rd party software. GLOBEtrotter was then acquired by

Macrovision TiVo Corporation, formerly known as the Rovi Corporation and Macrovision Solutions Corporation, was an American technology company. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company is primarily involved in licensing its intellectual property ...

in 2000. Combining features from the Safecast protection system and FLEXlm, FlexNet featured

product activation Product activation is a license validation procedure required by some proprietary software programs. Product activation prevents unlimited free use of copied or replicated software. Unactivated software refuses to fully function until it ''determin ...

and executable wrapping, supporting

floating licensing Floating licensing, also known as concurrent licensing or network licensing, is a software licensing approach in which a limited number of licenses for a software application are shared among a larger number of users over time. When an authorized ...

and node locked licensing models. Macrovision subsequently renamed FLEXlm to FLEXnet Publisher. The original FLEXlm development team moved on to develop the

Reprise License Manager The Reprise License Manager (RLM) is the software licensing toolkit developed and marketed by Reprise Software, providing on-premises and cloud-based license management, license enforcement and product activation solutions for publishers of comme ...

(RLM) at Reprise Software in 2006. On 1 April 2008 Macrovision's Software Business Unit, which included FLEXnet Publisher, was sold to the private equity company

Thoma Cressey Bravo Thoma Bravo, LP, is an American private equity and growth capital firm with offices in San Francisco, Chicago and Miami. It is known for being particularly active in acquiring software companies and has over $114 billion in assets under managem ...

and subsequently relaunched as Acresso Software. It was a cash transaction valued at approximately $200 million. In October 2009 Acresso Software announced its name change to Flexera Software and FLEXnet Publisher was changed to FlexNet Publisher. A July 2011 announcement said that Teachers' Private Capital, the private investment department of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, had agreed to acquire a majority stake in Flexera Software from Thoma Bravo, LLC, a private equity firm. The product is currently marketed by Flexera Software as FlexNet Publisher.

Issues with bootloaders

Due to the way the

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. ...

(DRM) works in FlexNet Publisher, FlexNet affects

bootloader A bootloader, also spelled as boot loader or called boot manager and bootstrap loader, is a computer program that is responsible for booting a computer. When a computer is turned off, its softwareincluding operating systems, application code, an ...

s; this makes FlexNet Publisher incompatible with drives encrypted with

TrueCrypt TrueCrypt is a discontinued source-available freeware utility used for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file, or encrypt a partition or the whole storage device (pre-boot authentication). On 28 May ...

and renders

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

-based systems unable to boot. The TrueCrypt developers also state that "the issue is caused by inappropriate design of the third-party activation software."

Other license management software

IBM LUM IBM License Use Management (LUM) is the IBM product for technical software license management. IBM LUM for AIX is delivered as a standard component of AIX and is available on many other Unix flavors and on the Windows platform. CATIA is probably t ...

LM-X License Manager The LM-X License Manager is a license management tool that protects software products against piracy. It is used by Independent software vendor, Independent Software Vendors (ISV) to implement some of the Software Asset Management practices. relate ...

Open iT Open iT, Inc. is an independent software vendor that specializes in metering, analyzing, and optimizing usage of critical IT assets. It was founded in 1999 by Eistein Fosli, who obtained his Master of Science in Information Technology from the U ...

* OpenLM *

''(RLM)'' *

Wibu-Systems Wibu-Systems GmbH is a software manufacturer founded in 1989, specialising in software licensing A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of ...

Windows Genuine Advantage Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) is an anti-Copyright infringement, infringement system created by Microsoft that enforces online validation of the licensing of several Microsoft Windows operating systems when accessing several services, such as ...

References

External links

*{{official website System administration Software licenses Copy protection