KNOWLEDGEBASE

The continuously growing core of the License Library contains a collection of software use rights and well-structured information which are essential for the proper licensing of software. This information is being researched, supported by official documents, and approved.

Products available in the Knowledgebase follow a certain product structure (Manufacturer – Product Family – Version – Edition) and are linked to licensing (meta) information. Depending on the accessibility and diversity of information, software products may vary in the amount of information available to them. You will find, for example, details about the licensing metric, language and platform rules, standard classifications, export rules based on the Export Control Classification Number, downgrade rights, second use rights and much more.

Products currently not available in the Knowledgebase can be requested free of cost via the License Service Desk.

PRODUCT GUIDES

This section contains a collection of current and archived product guides issued by the software vendors. Those guides are focused on software licensing and give, in many cases, a higher-level view on the licensing of individual products.

Those guides are ordered according to the year of publication and are proactively complemented, mostly on a monthly basis. Depending on availability, each guide will be accessible in English and German.

MASTER AGREEMENTS

This part of the License Library is focused on the structured presentation of the core features and differences of software vendors’ major contracts. Information available in this section is base data and is supposed to support the user in understanding the major differences of the contracts displayed.

When you are browsing the Knowledgebase, you will find a link on each product to the Master Agreements, if there is a Master Agreement section available for the respective software vendor.

USE CASES

In this section of the License Library you will find concise answers and solutions to complex use cases of Software Asset Management (SAM). Categorized by the software vendor, these cases are always initiated by a specific question or issue which in most cases refers to a certain software product. The solution is presented in an easy-to-understand format and verified by a screenshot, indication of source as well as downloadable documentation. Use cases are are structured according to the respective software vendor, but can also be browsed via a full text search.

If you have an individual licensing question, you can always open a Use Case Ticket via the License Service Desk.

SKU TRACKER

The SKU Tracker enables you to perform a live search of SKUs or software products (licenses), accessing a steadily growing database which we have been maintaining since 2001. The result of your search will be an original vendor SKU and a normalized software license description which contains relevant and detailed purchasing information according to the SKU.  The result will improve the transparency of your purchased software licenses and make future purchasing procedures easier and, more importantly, safer.

If your search does not lead to a result, you will see the option to submit the required SKU. The provided data will then be validated, processed and integrated into the SKU Tracker. You will of course be informed about the result of the integration process.

OSS LICENSE REVIEW

How does Open Source Software (OSS) influence Software Asset Management and which are the factors that determine its influence? The OSS License Review provides solutions to said issues by classifying common OSS licenses and verifying as well as documenting essential rights and obligations that come with the respective OSS license.

The result is a broad collection of OSS licenses that provides a direct and easy access to OSS licensing. You can browse the OSS licenses via a full text search and download the available license texts.

FONT LICENSING

Typefaces or fonts are very similar to software. They are subject to certain use rights, the scenarios in which they are used are very diverse, and the ways in which they can be licensed are accordingly complex. However, they are much less in the center of attention than software, even though they come with potential risk if you do not comply with the license terms.

Based on Font Foundries, this section of the License Library gives you an overview about the different licensing models, describes how typefaces and fonts can be used in certain scenarios, and gives you direct access to the license terms of the individual Font Foundries.

LICENSE SERVICE DESK

You can use our ticket service to gain access to the knowledge of our SAM experts at the License Service Desk team. We handle queries to any software vendor and the result of the research will be documented in the License Library and provided to you directly.

Use the Licensing Support to request products which are currently not available in the Knowledgebase. We will research the license use rights, present the core information in detail, approve the edited data, and get back to you when the product was released in the Knowledgebase.

Open a Use Case Ticket to let our experts solve your individual software licensing question. We are going to research the required information, process it in a comparable way and include documents of proof. The answer to your ticket will be provided via the License Service Desk.