Got 2 questions/comments about Northwoods GoDiagram .NET
WinForm licensing:
Northwoods is using a licensing scheme that I have yet to find in any other 3rd party packages. I must say it is quite painful. FYI, our experience is based on VS 2003, Northwoods 2.1. We now have plans to migrate to VS 2005 and Northwoods 2.4/5, but I believe that the licensing mechanism has not changed…
1. Licensing is per machine. 
-> With such a scheme, a company needs not only to purchase licenses per developer computer, but also for other computers like the build servers!!!
-> Also, if a developer has more than one computer (not so unusual: a workstation and a laptop when traveling! I saw in this forum that you have from time to time given free additional licenses to developers in this situation. Why not making this the official rule, allowing multiple computers per license as long as the developer has a license? This would make our life a lot simpler!
2. Licensing must be done on all assemblies, and especially the final executable, which does not always fit complex enterprise-wide developments.
There are 2 examples below from opposite viewpoints. I’d like you to correct me if I am wrong and/or suggest how best to deal with this situation.
-> Case 1: development of applications within larger framework/SDK.
We are developing applications that live within a larger framework. One could consider them plug-ins: these apps are dll assemblies that get dynamically loaded by the main exe application. The main exe is out of our control and we develop our applications based on an SDK. How can this be handled with Northwoods licensing mechanism? It seems that we would have to buy GoDiagram licenses for them, AND have them to agree to add that to their build (once again, we may not have any leverage on them!).
-> Case 2: development of framework/SDK to allow other developers to build upon it.
We are developing software to be used internally within a given business unit. For a specific type of data we have developed a corresponding toolkit, including data I/O and specific visualization windows for such data (one of them, using GoDiagram…). This toolkit is now released as stand-alone application. But we also want to offer this as a component to be integrated in other applications, i.e. allow other developers (from another group within the company) to add to their applications support for our data, i.e. use our component in their application. It seems that they would all have to buy GoDiagram licenses although they have no direct use of it…
Considering that we are using features requiring the Pro version (the grouping…), at about $1,000 / machine, the solutions above consisting on buying licenses to everyone just for building are hardly acceptable. Of course, we could spend the time to downgrade to another 3rd party component, but I wish to find an acceptable solution with GoDiagram, as it is technically a very good component.
Things have changed some for version 2.5. Scott will answer here later.
Thanks. Looking forward to reading Scott’s answer.
Hi
I am very interested in knowing more about licensing info.
I am wondering if this product is royalty free or not.
I have earlier visited this website but it appeared like it is not royalty free so we decided not to go for it.
The product is very impressive and would like to know more, please update.
Thanks.
Yes, it has always been royalty free, with unlimited free deployment, for all platforms (WinForms, WebForms, Pocket).
We have always given a free license for build or second machines.
Send us e-mail for more details regarding the second point of the original post.
I was waiting on a reply from Scott 
We had never asked for free license for build or second machine. Good to know.
For the second part of my original post, I guess you want to take this offline. Which e-mail should I use? (I assume that as admin you have access to mine… I’ll then reply from my business address)
I am also very interest in the GoDiagram and have the same concerns and question as BebWill.
Before I commit to GoDiagram, I would like to know about any change in current license scheme to aswner the above questions.
Thanks.
I’m sorry for the confusion. We are in the process of clarifying our licensing terms. The following 2 paragraphs are from the GoDiagram Win/Web Introduction document and describe what has been our policy for many years:
“GoDiagram is licensed per developer. There are no additional fees for distributing or running applications that incorporate our GoDiagram products. Any developer who programs using the GoDiagram application programming interface (API) must be licensed.
Each developer machine must have an installed unlock code. A single paid developer license may have multiple unlock codes associated with it, allowing that developer to work on multiple machines (home machines, laptops, etc.). By default, each GoDiagram license has 2 unlock codes associated with it. If required, a reasonable number of additional unlock codes can be requested by sending e-mail to [email protected].”
Regarding BebWill’s second concern, it is possible to embed the GoDiagram license into a dll that is used in a larger framework. GoDiagram uses the Microsoft licensing architecture provided by the .NET Framework. While this architecture works well for standard EXEs, there are some difficulties when licensing DLLs or working in a limited trust environment. Licensed GoDiagram users can request our “Special Deployments” document that provides work-arounds for these situations.
-Scott