license question feature request?

[Johnny Boy]

Hi everyone. I have a question regarding the license in qlab 3.
We are a theater that has 3 stages and 3 rehearsal rooms. We also run with repertoire shows where as one show is running, another is in preparation to move in onstage and another is in rehearsal.
So the problem lies in the qlab licenses as we have video designers, sound designers and directors coming in all the time and they want different demands from qlab. so 3 main licenses, 3 programmers and a backup laptop.
Eventually over time macs go down or problems arise and so a new Mac has to be installed, often in a hurry.
This often means that the license is not unistalled and when the new mac tries to manage the same license online it says there are too many.
Is there please any way in the future to have an app that you could see which mac had which license and then be able to manage the license setup there? Or even just have the licence registered on a usb that you could take from one venue to another? I hate it when going to a new venue and they don't have any video in qlab even though they day they have the production bundle etc...
Just an idea. I was think along the lines of Waves License Control.
As much as it is fun to ask Lucky Dave now and again about licences there must surely be a better way.
Cheers J

[Harry Butcher]

I have the opinion that any serious designer should have a personal licence on their machine anyway to do home programming with. - I'd hate a USB Licence, It's already painful enough when I forget my ilok! 

I'm sure Chris will clear his stance on licensing as he has before, But I believe that he is being very kind in the way he has chosen to licence QLab. It's very much a trust thing. 

I see the warning message as a 'look, you've registered a few devices now - take a moment to decide if you're screwing us over. Maybe you should really be getting the producer to pay for this licence and thus ensuring this product that you depend on gets the financial support it needs' 

I could see the benefits of a centralised licence view thingy. - I think there have been a couple of instances where I have created a new user on my laptop for a show and forgotten to deactivate the licence before deleting the user. but a centralised thingy wouldn't be able to do anything apart from tell you how many times you've activated a licence. it wouldn't be able to work like apple's devices thingy. 

If I was in you're position I'd feel comfortable to have 3 licences to cover the 3 venue's main, backup and rehearsal rigs. Renting additional licences for any designer laptops. 

If a computer dies, I would install that venue's licence again. If that computer was replaced/upgraded but still stored or used I would expect to buy a new licence for that now '4th Qlab rig' 

I'm sure Chris will state his official stance. - try searching licences for his past comments. 

[John Conlon]

Hi Harry - I agree with you.

I hate using iLok and at all costs it should be avoided. I just meant that in our scenario we have several video designers and audio designers per season.

Most don't have a personal license to Qlab and so ask us if we can install a license on their personal laptops during the rehearsal phase.

This then gets really messy when they leave as we have to chase them up and ask them to de-authorise the license which they say they have.

Then we go to install the license somewhere else and it says 'too many licenses'.

It gets very annoying trying to chase down where the hell 9 licences are installed, authorised or de-authorised.

I have no way to check other than an excel spreadsheet that gets out of date very fast during a season with 3 stages.

Plus - as each license is tied to the mac's serial number and each Qlab serial number is long, it's quite hard to say to someone 'I need you to de-authories the code ending in Q75X etc...

All I really want is a way to go online - see which license is installed on which computer.

Even be able to name each mac so that it becomes crystal clear who has what.

The only reason I would like to have a Qlab license on a USB is to have the ability to give a guest designer a production bundle for a limited time and then know that it I wouldn't have to chase them down later.

Phew! That's me done!

Cheers, J

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[John Leonard]

Wouldn’t it be better for all concerned, including Figure 53, if your organization rented licenses for visiting designers for a fixed period? That way, there’s no chasing people, Chris and his team get revenue to help them develop more interesting things and you can customize exactly what each visiting designer needs in terms of a license. It’s not exactly expensive to rent a full production license, is it?

Regards,

John

[John Conlon]

Hi john,

We have discussed this with designers before and for some reason they are against it.

I guess the hassle of doing the renting themselves and then invoicing the theater is just too much for some artistic minds. ;p

All we need is an easy way to get the info of which license is installed where at a moments notice.

Instead of asking Lucky Dave...

Stuff like this also happens when Macs inevitably break down in a season and we have to hurriedly install everything on another mac.

With no chance to de-authorise on the broken mac.

It would just be easier to have an oversight picture of everything at the current time.

The problem will surely exacerbate as we purchase more licenses over time.

We here at the theater in Malmö, Sweden love Qlab and run it as hard as it can with large surround sound rigs and multiple screen video in HD.

All hail Qlab!

Cheers, J :)

[Richard Ingraham]

I have to say this seems like your guest designers are really trying to get something for nothing.  I've worked for regional theatres where I was in charge of the sound department and I don't remember a single guest designer asking me to loan them a QLab license.  We set up a QLab system in the rehearsal halls for them to use and for the SM to run cues when no sound designer/staff is around.  In fact most days this was just the free version of Qlab since we just had a single pair of speakers in the hall anyway.  Obviously for the video folks you probably need a licensed version for the rehearsal hall.  Even so I would just provide a machine for them to use in the hall and then it's your license on your machine.  Maybe it's just because I'm a sound designer and avoid the video stuff as much as I can but I see no reason a guest designer really needs QLab on their machine and I would have no problem telling a guest that if they really wanted that, they could either get their own, or arrange to rent one briefly or if they really must program on their day off or something we'll figure out a way for them to take the rehearsal hall machine to their hotel room or the like.  

Just my $0.02

Richard Ingraham

---

From: John Conlon <john.co...@gmail.com>
To: ql...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2015 7:25 AM
Subject: Re: [QLab] license question feature request?

[John Conlon]

Hi Richard,

It's often been the case that the team that comes in - director, sound designer, video designer (not counting the props, costume and lighting designers) often want everything up and running from day 1 in the rehearsal rooms and then a seamless move over to the main stages for the last weeks of rehearsal before a premier.

This coupled with the fact that the technical staff will usually only work daytime until the last week or so will mean that video designers working with multiple screens and surfaces plus sound designers who are working with surround want to continue working when the stage is clear or in their hotel rooms etc.

Anyway - I understand their point of view but it can be a logistical headache for us hunting down who had what and when.

All I ask is a way to get is a way get the information directly.

A page on the website that you could log into and see where your licenses are installed.

Cheers, J 

[Jevans]

Problem with an online license manager is that show machines (should!) never be connected to the internet except when absolutely necessary, so how would a machine know it's been deauthorised? How would F53 know that you've done it? If you can't connect the machine to the internet anyway because it's broken or you don't have time then you've still got no way of performing the authorisation, regardless of if it's online or not.

Thanks,

John

[Chris Ashworth]

Something of a tangent, but:

On the subject of connecting to the Internet, I must admit I have a mild disagreement on this topic from my esteemed support colleagues.

They will probably shudder to hear me say it, but I don’t find it problematic to have a show machine connected to the Internet, unless there is a known specific reason it would cause problems. 

A corollary to not connecting to the Internet is that you also miss notifications that there are updates available. I know that theoretically show machines should be given the kind of loving care where someone is intentionally going to check them and update them between shows, but I personally find it surprising (and somewhat alarming) at how old some copies of QLab when people write in with questions about bugs that have been fixed, in some cases, for years.

That said, there’s a reason that, say, my support teammate Andy was so often the guy hired to make sure a Broadway show never (BUT NEVER) went down, and his attention to detail included things like disconnecting from the Internet, which made his machines that much more stable.

So I guess I see value in both connection and disconnection.  I think it can be a valid choice to leave them connected, if you need the benefits that provides and understand the risks.

There also may be kinds of products / features that simply must be connected to a network to fulfill their goals. It is interesting to me to consider what can be designed if we assume that the network is available and can access the wider world.

-C

[John Conlon]

I agree. We never have a network connection running during a show. And regularly connect to update software one a month or so.
The only thing I need is access to the license info without having to ask for it in a specific mail to Lucky Dave is all!
I even take back the notion of a license center like Waves or Native Instruments.
J

--

[Rich Walsh]

Briefly, I managed the QLab licences for the NT for a bit. It is a 3 venue rep space, with touring systems and so on – although all video was done on Catalyst.

We had a single licence with 12 seats on it, and I kept the licence file on an encrypted disk image that only a couple of us had access to. With it was a text file to be updated whenever it was used. You don't need the licence file to deauthorise a machine. Backup machines were licensed and ready to go: no need for suddenly requiring a licence if you plan ahead.

I could lend licences and then make sure I cleared them off the machine before the machine left for good, but it never really came up as calling yourself a sound designer without a copy of QLab is like a chef turning up without any knives, I think.

Rich

[Mike Post]

I agree. We never have a network connection running during a show. And regularly connect to update software one a month or so. 
The only thing I need is access to the license info without having to ask for it in a specific mail to Lucky Dave is all!
I even take back the notion of a license center like Waves or Native Instruments.
J 

I think that’s the real answer, no network while a show is running.  For me, I define that as a show in production - isolated from tech until closing.  I’ve had PC based lighting consoles freeze during tech because they went after something on the net and look to eliminate that.  Between productions is a much more manageable time to let the Internet in and get updates done.

The glitch in that philosophy for some is people who use services like Dropbox to transfer content to the production machine.  Personally, I don’t think having something like that installed and listening on an open socket is a good idea, but I also know some designers who use it just fine and insist on it.  I’d rather get a thumb drive and sneaker-net my content.

Mike Post

mdp...@mac.com

http://mdpostdesign.com

(601) 307-8657

[John Conlon]

I could agree more Rich.
It hallens more often than not that sound and video designers turn up who 1st - don't have the relevant Qlab bundle and 2nd (even worse) can't or haven't used Qlab and we end up doing all the heavy lifting.
My main issue is abusing the trust between F53 and ourselves.
We really don't want to have a ton of laptops and mac pros floating around as then who knows what will happen.
WW3, anarchy! !!
J

[John Conlon]

And of course, going back to my original issue of having to authorise one of our 3 production bundle licenses onto a guest designer's laptop as they don't own a copy is a total pain.
And when they go online it says the warning message of too many on that license.
Just bugs me y'know?
J

[Rich Walsh]

If you've used all 3 installs then you don't have another one do you? Plus of course, the licence isn't for 3 simultaneous seats…

You need to make sure you've got the loan licences back if you're going to lend them as otherwise you're giving away Chris's children's food!

Seriously if you can't manage your assets and get them back you need to insist on giving designers rental copies. If they don't like it they can design somewhere else: nothing wrong with being militant about things _your_ company pay for.

Rich

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[John Conlon]

Ok. Here's my Jerry Springer Final Thoughts Of The Day, as I feel this thread is getting a little off tack.
1st - All I request is the ability to have a quick look over where the licenses are installed.  That's it. Either by website, excel file,  Hogwarts owl post or whatever.
2nd - myself and the other technician often look to move licenses around to keep within the bounds of the software agreement. I'm very picky on this.
3rd - I too bemoan the fact that designers are employed to do a job and don't turn up with the correct tools.
If a plumber came to your house without a wrench and asked to borrow one you'd be pissed! However,  such is life sometimes.
J

[Andy Lang]

John, a few quick thoughts, from one of the other members of the support team (there are more of us than just luckydave, as awesome as he is :-)

Do note that these are, however, my personal opinions, and may not necessarily reflect the official views of Figure 53.

1) We are always more than happy to get you a list of what computers your license has been activated on. It’s not a huge deal, although obviously it’s not the most efficient thing. We are interested in making this more readily accessible to you without our intervention in the future, but that’s a ways off, if it’s feasible, as it would require a complete rewrite of how our web store works, from soup to nuts. For the time being, though, it’s quite easy for us to send you a CSV with the serial numbers of the computers, as well as the dates and IP addresses of the most recent activation requests for each.

2) Before I came here, I worked for one of the major Broadway rental shops. I managed a number of QLab licenses there. I don’t remember the total count of their seats, but at the moment, their QLab 3 license has 33 seats on it, and they still have a pile of QLab 2 licenses that haven’t been upgraded. I was diligent about tracking each and every one of them, and so don’t really buy the argument that 3 seats is unmanageable, no matter how busy the season.

One trick I used was to make three copies of each license, one for each seat. Then, when installing that license seat on a computer, I’d rename my copy of that file to include the serial number of the computer, the show it was on, etc right in the file name. This was a lot easier to keep up to date than a separate spreadsheet, since there was one actual license file kept per seat, and the pertinent details were right there

3) I believe the suggestion of a rental license, which seems a viable solution if you’re having that much trouble keeping track of installations on your own, was that your venue purchase the rental for the designer, not that you make them purchase it and reimburse them. The latter is just adding all sorts of extra bureaucracy, as you noted.

4) If a plumber came to my house without the appropriate tools, I wouldn’t shrug it off as “such is life”. I’d fire the plumber, and find one who cares enough about his job to do it properly.

5) This list is already way too long.

Best always,
Andy

—
Andy Lang
@SoundGuyAndy
sup...@figure53.com

​

[Jeremy Lee]

I always set up a closed wired network for the show machine and tech table. Dropbox is great for what it is, but it will never touch a production machine on my watch. It causes seriously slow bootups and random moments of CPU spiking. 

- Jeremy Lee's mobile device

[Jeremy Lee]

In my experience, sound designers in Europe would rather use LIVE than QLab because they're largely musicians instead of sound designers. In my opinion, you have 2 legitimate choices in that situation- you do the heavy lifting in QLab (or teach them how to use it) or buy the software that they are comfortable in using for your production.

Video playback is such a diverse field regarding software, that the same really goes there.

In the U.S., pretty much any theatre at any level is using QLab since it's awesome, and we treat a sound designer like a designer instead of a musician (for better or worse). In the U.S. (And according to Rich, the UK as well) an understanding of QLab is a necessity.

- Jeremy Lee's mobile device

[Joshua Langman]

Some random thoughts:

1. I do not think a venue should provide QLab licenses to guest designers. I've never heard of this before. Everywhere I work, the expectation is that the designer owns a license. Regardless, it doesn't come up much during tech because even if the designer is using their own laptop, it's with a screen-share or KVM connection to the production computer. Because this causes its own problems, I personally prefer to program on my own laptop and transfer to the show computer near the end of tech, for which purpose I use my own license. Owning a license is a normal business expense for any designer.

2. That said, I have also wanted a central online display that shows you where your licenses are currently installed.

3. If you must provide licenses for designers, rental licenses seems like the only sensible way to go. Set them to expire when the show opens and never have to worry about deauthorization.

[Lists]

I have to chime in here - I'm a designer, and I own a qlab license and have basically since it was a purchasable item - but....

Theaters at least in the states are often reticent to pay for the use of my studio/portable gear.  As a designer they're hiring me for my ideas and knowhow - and that shouldn't come with a big chunk of gear unless the theater is compensating me for the use of the gear.  The costume designer isn't expected to bring a sewing machine, the LD isn't expected to bring a light board (or computer based lighting option).  Why should I be expected to subsidize a theater?  If the theater needs qlab in rehearsal, they should own or rent an rehearsal system.  If i need to program outside of rehearsal I, or a designated programmer, should have access to it.

I should absolutely know how to put together a show in qlab, but I'm not a plumber, i'm an artist paid for my ideas and concepts, not the realization of them.

[Jeremy Lee]

Exactly. My wife is a costume designer and technician. When she is on a film and expected to bring her own tools, she is compensated between $15-75/ day in kit fee. 

Unfortunately, theatre in the U.S. is looked at as a professional hobby by producers. This is hopefully something that can change in my lifetime. 

- Jeremy Lee's mobile device

[John Conlon]

Ok ok! I can see I've kicked a Hornets nest here.

I totally get that the designers employed are artists and it's their vision, talent and expertise that is being paid for. And that's a priceless asset sometimes that can make or break a show.

I simply meant that as a cultural thing, sound and (dare I say it) video designers are a special breed and I'm frequently amazed how many of them are very un-tech savvy. Which in my humble opinion is odd seeing as the very fields they operate in demand such knowledge.

I myself also do sound and video design for other theaters and I'm constantly at the sharp end making sure the whirley-wonder-idea-stuff inside my head gets seen and heard in the right way.

Anyway...

Let's put this to bed and agree that some kind of license oversight as a paying customer in the future is nothing but a good thing.

So, as The Dreaded Pirate Roberts once said "sleep well and dream of large women"

Cheers J

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[Richard Ingraham]

Totally agree.  I was surprised to see all these suggestions that designers should own their own licenses because I think that is bunch of nonsense as well.  Maybe it's just because I'm thinking about things from the LORT perspective rather than an SPT or Community Theatre, where I often have been both designer and gear provider.  But that is a different animal and most of those size companies don't really fly in guest designers that promptly leave town after opening.

Maybe things are weird where I have worked (probably true)  but it's never really been that big of an issue.  I think all this would be a moot point if the theatre in question had appropriate tools for the needs of their designers, the rehearsal hall and the venues.  

In one of the companies I was in charge of the sound department at most recently yes the Mac Mini in the rehearsal hall was often my own with my own audio interface etc...  So yeah when I was designing I provided the gear for the rehearsal hall since we didn't have enough to go around.  But the company rented the system from me.  And either we just used the free version of QLab for the rehearsal hall or I would use the theatre's license (we still have not upgraded to version 3...  don't ask...).  If we really needed to do so, we could have always rented a license.

Point is, getting the license back from a guest designer was never an issue because we never expected them to use their own gear at any point to complete the needed tasks.  Now some showed up with their own laptop and wanted to use that and maybe they had their own license and that's perfectly fine.  We would just plug them into the rehearsal hall system.  But we never put our license on their machines.  And I never really ran into any complaints from designers saying they needed more access to the QLab rig than what we gave them.

Don't get me wrong a more slick licensing tool would be nice.  Frankly except for the fact that Stage Research only lets you register a single machine per license I think they have a far superior tool for managing their licenses.  (there I said it out loud, you can all throw something at me now if you like)  With SFX you can store your license on the machine or on a thumb drive and use that like a dongle if you want.  And there is a simple tool for moving the license from thumb drive to hard drive and back again making it easy to move it around with no internet connection needed.  Unfortunately they only let you have 1 machine registered at any time, so the moment a machine goes down that registration is lost and you have to contact them, like Figure 53.  Oh well, no system is perfect.  

Richard Ingraham

---

From: Lists <ccoes...@gmail.com>
To: ql...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2015 2:49 PM

Subject: Re: [QLab] license question feature request?

[Andy Lang]

On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 5:12 PM Richard Ingraham <rbing...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Frankly except for the fact that Stage Research only lets you register a single machine per license I think they have a far superior tool for managing their licenses.  (there I said it out loud, you can all throw something at me now if you like)  With SFX you can store your license on the machine or on a thumb drive and use that like a dongle if you want.  And there is a simple tool for moving the license from thumb drive to hard drive and back again making it easy to move it around with no internet connection needed.  

Speaking, OH so very much as myself, and not as an employee of Figure 53 here...

That's because you were never the owner of an SFX 6  license that somebody else stole from you because of the false sense of security their licensing system provides. Unless something's changed since my shop days, their licensing system protects Stage Research's interest in the software, but not the purchaser's.

The problem is that the tool to allow moving a license between a computer and a USB key requires no authentication on the part of the person doing the moving. So if you, say, rent out a system with an SFX 6 license on it, somebody could transfer the license from that computer to a USB key before returning the computer to you, and now they have your license, and you're left having to contact Carlton to get a replacement license. DAMHIK. IJK.

Now, granted, our current licensing scheme has a lot of flexibility built into it, too, some might argue too much. The difference, though, is that if somebody copies your QLab license without your permission, you still have your original license, and we generally allow enough leeway that you can get a show going without having to have us get you a new replacement key ASAP. We built the system so that you don't have to rush in a panic to contact us right away. Get the show going, and then email us, and we'll sort it out.

Unless your license has been grossly over activated, you're not going to get locked out right away. And when we do catch a license being activated excessively, we reach out to the original purchaser to try to find out what's going on. But making sure that you don't have to cancel a show because of a licensing misunderstanding is just as important to us as making sure that we get paid appropriately for the licenses that are being used. We try to strike a fair balance there.

If you know your license was stolen, you should definitely reach out to us as soon as you know about it. Then we can work with you to replace that license, so that the person who shouldn't have it can't keep using it to activate new computers. But you generally are not going to be stuck waiting to hear back from us to be able to keep using your license; that's something that's very important to us.

This long tangent notwithstanding, we've been having a lot of discussion amongst ourselves here at F53 today about possible ways we can make the workflow of managing licenses easier in the future, so we do hear you all, and we are paying attention.

I can't promise what form any new tools might take, if any, or when they might happen, but we're letting some thoughts steep to find a better way for situations like John's, as well as others that we see come up in support messages from time to time. 

Best always,

Andy

[John Conlon]

Hi Andy.
Thanks a million for chiping in with that.
We totally appreciate the work F53 does and the results onstage are the proof as to how great Qlab is.
Some shows would have been impossible without it.
This thread got taken over by a discussion about work ethic as opposed to the original point.
All I need is a quick way to see which license is installed where.  Simple. That's it.  Nothing more nothing less.
The point of having guest designers demand a license when they get here is another issue.
Figure 53 have changed the game rules for theatre work may they rule.
I raise my 1st and 4th fingers in salute of their awesomeness.
J

--

[Richard Ingraham]

Good points as always Andy.  Trust me, I tried to get SR to loosen up on that front in years past but obviously I was not the boss.  They seem to have finally received the message about the need for a free version if what I've read is correct.  :-)

I will say that if you have someone who is willing to be unscrupulous about getting themselves a freebie license, they will manage to get one in some fashion, no matter what any software company does.  What is really unfortunate is that we need any of this crap in the first place which all it does is make more work for support folks, waste code writers time and of course keeps honest people... honest.  But humans will be humans and I doubt there are many folks around that have not seen what happens to software authors who work purely on the honor system.

I guess my point is it would nice to have a tool that would allow one to not only to see where each license is registered but a way to move one quickly and easily without the need to go online.  

Richard

---

From: Andy Lang <an...@figure53.com>
To: ql...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2015 6:28 PM

Subject: Re: [QLab] license question feature request?

That's because you were never the owner of an SFX 6  license that somebody else stole from you because of the false sense of security their licensing system provides. Unless something's changed since my shop days, their licensing system protects Stage Research's interest in the software, but not the purchaser's.

<snip>

[Daniel Perelstein]

<snip>

...software authors who work purely on the honor system....

<snip>

I won't mention REAPER here. Both because that would be so stereotypical of me and also (less sarcastically) because I don't actually know too much about their business model (or whether or not it is successful in any way). I certainly (and by now I'm completely unsarcastic, I promise) don't think that their business model represents a reasonable alternative to what Figure 53 does so well. That said, I do think that in our world of lost dongles, cracked licenses, and, as I understand it, massive amounts of computing power for most software suites going into DRM instead of audio editing or whatever, there is certainly a fight to be fought... Again, I don't know what Figure 53 ought to do about this. Their license management system has never been an issue for me personally, but that's neither here nor there.

Dan