D-bus model proposal for pay for access features - LicenseService at OpenBMC

[Brad Bishop]

On Fri, Oct 06, 2023 at 07:29:27AM -0500, Patrick Williams wrote:
>On Fri, Oct 06, 2023 at 10:21:01AM +0530, Sunitha Harish wrote:
>> Hi Patrick,
>>
>> Re-starting this discussion with the design that is being worked at
>> License Manager: Add license manager design (Ibd6c6f35) · Gerrit Code
>> Review (openbmc.org) <https://gerrit.openbmc.org/c/openbmc/docs/+/64710>.
>
>I've already written enough on this topic.  You've not added much in
>terms of what I've already written, so I'm not sure what more you want
>me to say.

I just want to say that OEMs have many, many happy customers that gladly 
pay for unlocking things.  They just don't typically hang out here 🙂.  
I just bought a BMC license key the other day for my ~8 year old 
Supermicro x10slh-f.  For what it is worth.  I know a lot of people have 
a problem with charging for security fixes but this is bigger than just 
that.

The legal/DMCA concerns are interesting.  I do wonder if the concerns 
could be generalized to all the code, though, and not just a license 
service.  Licensing features may not be in every OpenBMC users business 
model, but doesn't every business have just as much incentive to go 
after developers for public disclosure of -anything- that could impact 
its business?  What makes the DMCA applicable to a license service only, 
and not, for example, any old security vulnerability in foocorp-ipmi-oem 
or foocorp-misc?