ocad licence

[seabird]

re Height climb I think we sometimes attempt to make things too technical. I remember the wonderful height climb mechanism of Pickover. It took me ages to set up. Great fun - but time consuming.

In reality it never takes more than 15 minutes for any event, usually a lot less, simply to count the contours for all courses, including any adjustments when the direct route is not remotely the realistic choice. It is then the controller's job to make sure you've counted correctly.

[Scott]

Well, it seems that OCAD have listened to (some of) the feedback, and are releasing a course-setting-only version of their software at €31 a pop. I guess the question now is whether it's worth the money, given that it still doesn't allow map corrections and with the new/improved version of PurplePen supposedly due in the nearish future...

[RJ]

You get one free copy of CS with the upgrade to OCAD9. It effectively means that since only one event is likely to be being planned at any one time the copy and the license can be moved around the club.

The Course Setting is VERY good in OCAD9, particularly the setting of the print frame for your own printer. A lot of the poorer features in OCAD8 have been improved..... the multiple code numbers for common controls in butterfly loops.... if I remember correctly!

It isn't a bad idea for just the 'copyright' mapper to alter any map. It becomes a bit of a nightmare if there is a possibility of versions of a map to exist in the club. Since files can be moved electronically so very easily it makes sense for the mapper to make the changes needed for a particular event.

[distracted]

the course setting OCAD only allows you to plan on OCAD maps as well, so if you had a jpeg or illustrator file or similar then it's useless...

[Adventure Racer]

You get one free copy of CS with the upgrade to OCAD9. It effectively means that since only one event is likely to be being planned at any one time the copy and the license can be moved around the club.

The problem being that moving the registration around doesn't appear to be that straightforward with OCAD, which is after all the main gripe with this new process - if that was straightforward there would likely be a lot less need for the CS version.

It isn't a bad idea for just the 'copyright' mapper to alter any map. It becomes a bit of a nightmare if there is a possibility of versions of a map to exist in the club. Since files can be moved electronically so very easily it makes sense for the mapper to make the changes needed for a particular event.

That's alright in theory - in practice planners tend to make minor map revisions as necessary after site visits (I'm talking changing veg, removing overgrown paths sort of thing).

[SIman]

Talking about the new course planning version, the OCAD newsletter includes

The program must be registrated and activated before use with a licensee being able to install the program twice.

I am not sure what this means. Does it imply that OCAD CS can only be moved once?

[Marco Polo]

I think it does, and that must limit its use unless you have situations where OCAD is used with a dedicated computer. So if the club shared a laptop for planners or more likely had one computer for printing courses, then it might make sense.

[Adventure Racer]

It's also what I'd describe as an extremely restrictive license compared to the industry standard - even MS is more flexible than that! The only reason I can see for not providing a proper web based de-activation and re-activation process (which would still prevent multiple concurrent use very effectively) is that they can't be bothered, and would like to get the extra income from people having to buy more licenses than they actually need (the only alternative being that their coders are incompetent).

Personally I can see 3 eventual outcomes to this:
OCAD relent and provide a more sensible registration process, allowing licenses to be moved.
Somebody with a little bit of coding knowledge cracks their registration process, thus allowing a free-for-all.
We all start using different software for much of what we currently use OCAD for.

On the expectation that somebody from OCAD might be reading this, one of these scenarios provides a better on-going source of income than the other two.

[roadrunner]

It isn't a bad idea for just the 'copyright' mapper to alter any map. It becomes a bit of a nightmare if there is a possibility of versions of a map to exist in the club. Since files can be moved electronically so very easily it makes sense for the mapper to make the changes needed for a particular event.

While I'd agree in principle if that mapper is a member of the club, many clubs these days (including mine) use professional mappers most of the time. I can't see clubs wanting to pay them to make every single map correction (nor can I see the mappers wanting to do them all).

[RJ]

In which case the copyright remains with the club. You have paid for the map, it is the property of the club. It might be expedient to assign an OCAD person to the update of that map and only ONE person maintains all alterations. It is trying to avoid having several versions of the map on various computers that should be aimed at.

[Adventure Racer]

What you're talking about is change/version control. No reason why multiple people can't update maps - you just need a central repository where new versions of maps are sent when they've been updated (you could even use a proper bit of version control software like Subversion to keep track of changes).

[Paul Frost]

The most common thing I do when printing maps for events is tweak around the key, titles, frame etc. to suit the courses for that event, and that requires a full licence.
At the moment I do it for every event, but it would be nice to be able to let others do it and spread the work around.
EckO now has 2 licences but at least 6 people capable of doing such tweaks.
We are still trying to work out how we solve this problem.