Subject: [renum] Static addressing and software licensing

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Nov 2011 13:28:42 +1300

Hi,

draft-carpenter-6renum-static-problem-00 contains an open issue:

>    o  Certain software licensing mechanisms have existed which are based
>       on IP addresses.  [Question: Is this still relevant for IPv6
>       addresses?]

I have investigated this via an IPv6 operators' list, and here are extracts
from the most interesting replies. The conclusion is below.

"We use ... a piece of billing software, that is
dependent on both the IP address AND the mac address.  In order to
move it from an older system to a newer system you have to e-mail
in the mac address and IP address of the new system to the vendor who
provides a license key." (Ted Mittelstaedt)

> Thanks for the input. Oh, and do these vendors license users who
> are Net 10?

"The 2 I deal with both run a licensing server on the local LAN
and not over the internet, they don't care what numbers are used.

"Actually the more interesting question this leads up to is what is
XXXX and YYYY going to do?  Both of those sites on the Internet
have gigantic lists of allowed/disallowed Ip addresses depending on
whether the ISP has paid its blackmail fee to them or not."
(Ted Mittelstaedt)

"yes it has been used, both for fixing
the 'server' IP address on a certain IPv4 and/or IPv6 address but also
the prefixes that clients might use. For this though from what I have
seen it was mostly a /48 not a /128, this to allow that license to be
used one on server per the policy (as written in text in the license),
but allow it to be moved inside the organization, but thus disallowing
the license to be 'transfered' to another organization." (Jeroen Massar)

"I've seen several orgs that use so-called 'virtual libraries', where
the content holder strictly enforces IPv4 netblocks used by
those orgs to access content.  I have been told there's no reason not
to treat IPv6 any different but have yet seen this done in the wild."
(William F. Maton Sotomayor)

"IEEE content, for example, can be licensed either individually (using a
password) or to an institutions' netblock(s)" (Ignatios Souvatzis)

Conclusion: it is extremely likely that software licensing or content
licensing based on either IPv6 prefixes or IPv6 host addresses will arise.
Therefore, this does need to be analysed in the static renumbering draft.

-- 
Regards
   Brian Carpenter