HP-UX Media and License for c8000 Workstations

[Marco DV]

Hello,
we bought two second-hand HP c8000 workstations. They came with no installation media.

We'd need to install HP-UX 11i v1 on both, the exact version a contact of ours runs on his own c8000. This contact has the original media we would need, but he doesn't know whether he's legally allowed to lend them to us or else. And we don't know, either.

We would like to get an official and final answer on this.
Does anyone have any reference from the HP web site about this?

Most local resellers are on holiday now, and anyway they mostly don't know anything "official" about HP-UX licensing and such old OS versions.
Local HP services require a valid warranty (which our old machines of course do not have anymore) to open a case.

We can't find the media we need on eBay or similar second-hand sources.

I've read a similar question in these forums and it was even suggested that the user downloads HP-UX images from a torrent... but downloadable HP-UX images aren't easy to find, either, and most of all we would like to have official trusted media, containing the exact version we need.

Any clues?
Thanks a lot.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

This is a peer to peer forum not official contact with the company.

HP-UX media is not downloadable in any format.

The base price, last I checked for HP-UX was $300, which is a pretty good price for proprietary software.

You need to contact HP to get the media and pay for it.

http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/contact_us.html

Your system has a LTU, License to Use, which costs nothing, but must be worked out with HP.

SEP

[Michal Kapalka (mikap)]

hi,

about license it always some questions.

In my opinion, if you pay for the HW,

and you don't have an invoice or paper form that, the licence was included in the price of the HW, so you need to buy a new license.


mikap

[Marco DV]

Thanks.

Steven, I was not asking for official replies in this forum (although I see an "HP moderator" icon among the member icons on the left so maybe an official reply is somehow possible).
I was asking for references/links to official web pages or documents which could answer my question.

We'd be glad to pay 300$ for the media we need, but both HP and HP resellers have been useless so far.
Seems like buying HP-UX media is hard enough, and looking for a specific old version is even harder.

[Steven Schweda]

I know nothing, but if the actual media are
my property, then I believe that I can do
anything I want with them, with the obvious
exception that I can't publish their
copyrighted contents. _I_ would say that
loaning them to you would not constitute
"publishing" them, but my opinion is not
authoritative.

Getting a license to use the software on any
particular machine is an entirely different
question, of course, and possession of the
media does not confer such a license.
(Possession of the machine itself might,
however. I can't recall ever seeing a real
HP-UX license, so what do I know?)

[OldSchool]

I don't know if the same applies to workstations or not, but for servers, the LTU used to follow the hardware. I.e., you had the box, it was ok to run it.

I seem to recall that the treated workstations somewhat differently, but how and why, I don't know.

On the other hand, we've always left the drives bare when disposing of equipment. and by "bare", I mean everything, including the OS, was removed.

[Olivier Masse]

The HP-UX quickspecs are not very detailed on the subject:
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12079_na/12079_na.PDF

As some people here pointed out and from what I understand, the license and the installation media are two separate products. You can, for example, buy just one media and copy it on an ignite server to then remotely install hundreds of servers. I usually purchase servers without any media because the media kits are expensive, and they're glad to sell me a license anyway. :)

Since purchasing media is not necessary, my interpretation is that receiving one as a loan or gift is not illegal. It is illegal, however, to run HP-UX if you do not have a license, or running a more recent version than your license entitles you to.

Chances are strong that originally, the workstation came with an HP-UX LTU. But you probably didn't get the paper copy with it. Unless the seller kept it or explicitly transfered it to someone else, you are probably entitled to it but that will be based on the honor system. If you need a paper trail to be able to pass any future audit, and don't have access to an HP Rep to help, your best option is probably to purchase new licenses such as the ones available here:
http://h20392.www2.hp.com/portal/swdepot/displayProductInfo.do?productNumber=B9089AC

They're not cheap so next time be sure that when you buy used hardware, it comes with licenses, or buy your hardware from a reseller that can provide the correct information.

Good luck

[V. Nyga]

Hi,

having the license, it simplier to get an ignite image from your contact or a copied disk.
That the best solution to get an 'exact version'.

HTH
Volkmar

[Duncan Edmonstone]

I think Olivier came closest to my understanding of the legal situation... this is just MY opinion and not HP's - but here goes:

when the system was originally purchased from HP, it will have been purchased with a HP-UX License To Use (LTU). That will have been an LTU for a specific version, but if the workstation was on support, the original owner may have been entitled to upgrade it to a newer version...

Now the difficult bit - when the original owner got rid of the workstation, he may have not thought at all about his HP-UX license -or- (and this is the important bit), he may have transitioned the license to another HP-UX system, or traded the license in for another HP-UX license on a newer system.

So the long and short of it is that you *might* have a license entitlement, but only the person that sold you this can confirm this for you (if they know), and even then there is a formal process for this (with a charge) - have you contacted these folks here:

http://www.hp.com/softwarereleases/releases-media2/slt/index.html

If you can post the system serial numbers here, I *might* be able to track down what they were originally purchased with (or send me an email - you should be able to figure out my HP email address from my forum name - I won't put it in the post as I end up getting attacked by spam bots!)

HTH

Duncan

[Duncan Edmonstone]

As for the question about "borrowing" a copy of the media, I think the point here would be that this is probably acceptable, but for my part I would want *proof* that you are entitled to the software before lending the media.

HTH

Duncan

[OldSchool]

as noted in the OP's usenet thread regarding this, as well as here, the LTU came with the hdw. Simple possession of the hdw grants the LTU.

As to the media, the original owner can lend the media to anybody. What is not permitted is to duplicate the media an sell the dupe(s). As long as its original media, the owner can lend or sell it as desired.

The remaining issue would be any software you might require that needs a codeword. An example of such would be the full C compiler suite (as opposed to the bundled one used to build kernels).

That could be an issue if you were to make an Ignite copy of the "contacts" system would pick that up as well. I don't know that it would run, but it certainly would violate all kinds of license requirements for botht the OP and his/her contact.

[Marco DV]

Thanks everyone.
I share all your ideas about media and licenses, but unfortunately we stay in the assumptions realm and I still can't find any official answers :)... or not complete ones, at least: Duncan, I already tried contacting "those folks" at the HP Licensing Information Centre EMEA, and I've only been told that it is illegal to use other people's media in any way, which includes copying and borrowing; they suggested asking to resellers, but they've been useless so far, as I wrote.

Regarding license transfers and their differences between servers and workstations, this document talks about it:
http://www.hp.com/softwarereleases/releases-media2/slt/emea/hpux.html
It tells that a transfer is not needed for workstations, which makes me suppose that any license automatically moves with the hardware, but again, we get into assumptions...

I'd guess the situation will be clearer in September, when resellers here around will be fully working again and the boss of our contact will be back from holidays and will possibly lend us the media without hesitation ;).

[Marco DV]

Hi all.
We eventually obtained to borrow the installation media from our contact, and guess what? We can't make them work on our machines :(.

Installation crashes very soon after booting from the DVD, with no meaningful (for us, at least) logs.

Our machines are slightly newer than the one owned by our contact, produced maybe 1 year later (end of 2005 instead of 2004).
The installed OS on our contact's machine is HP-UX 11i v1 (B.11.11), and the three DVDs he gave us have the same version on the label, although the label says they are from 2003. Another, more strange, thing is that the DVD labels say "TCOE", while he has MTOE installed.

Now... we start thinking that these DVDs are actually not the real DVDs where the system has been installed from. Maybe it was installed form other media or disk image and then the source was taken away by the same person who installed it.

Any other clues?
Thanks.

[Duncan Edmonstone]

So does your contact have a C8000? Or an earlier model C class workstation?

The first release of 11i to support the C8000 was I think Dec 04 - you can see comments in the release notes about this here:

http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-0671/ch05s03.html

So I suspect you'll need media of at least Dec 04 to install from...

HTH

Duncan

[Marco DV]

Hi Duncan,
our contact's machine is a c8000, too; it's just a bit older. We noticed this by also looking at the HD models installed inside.

You seem to confirm our theory, that the media they have are not the real ones which have been used to install the system...