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Software licensing

License types

There are several different ways the software on our systems is licensed:

Free to use

The vast majority of our installed software is free to use and needs no licensing. Such programs are directly available to all VSC users

VSC site license

The VSC Research Center has a license valid for all our systems and all our users. The software is either directly available or activated upon request for all users

Institutional license

One of the partner institution has a license valid for all members of that institution. In this case, the software on our systems is also only available for users of that institution, and activation needs to be requested from us

Bring your own license (BYOL)

If the user or the research team have a license, the software can be used on our systems with that license. The specifics depend on the license method, see below.

License methods

License server

In order to start the software, it needs to contact a specific server to verify the license. We are running a few of these servers. In case of BYOL software, the user has to provide us with the connection details to the license server.

License file

A specific file needs to be present in the software directory. For BYOL software, the user needs to provide that file.

Group based license

No special technical measure is present, but the software is only available to eligible users. This is controlled via user groups. Please contact us via support to be added to the appropriate type