Problems with Framemaker

[Jack A. Zucker]

I just wanted to relate a problem I am having with Frame Technologie's so
as to help others avoid extreme frustration.

About 6 months ago, I bought a SUN Sparcstation 1. I also bought the
Framemaker 2.0 package for Sunview. Frame is licensed to the hostid of the
workstation. When I bought the package, I called Frame's tech support
people, gave them my hostid, and they gave me back a password that would
allow me to run their software. All this worked fine until I decided to
sell my Sparcstation. I sold it last week and the person who bought it
already used Interleaf and did not want to pay for Frame. I knocked off
quite a bit of money from what I was asking, thinking that I would be able
to sell Frame seperately. (Frame lists for $2500 on the Sparcstation). I
called Frame to see how their licensing applies to this situation. To my
horror, they indicated that I could not sell the package since I was not a
"Frame Reseller". I couldn't believe it. The way they would enforce it
would be to *not* give a valid password to whoever bought the package from
me. This would be like the state not granting you a license tag for a car
because you were not the original owner. In fact, I'm not sure if this is
legal.  I will be contacting the Better Business Bureau about this. I told
Frame that I would be posting this story on Usenet about two weeks ago and
they have not responded back to me on it. Apparently, I'm such an
insignificant customer of theirs, that I'm not due anything other than
what I've already received. 

Frame offered the advice that I could give the software away with my
machine even though I was not getting paid for it or that I could bring it
into work and run it on my machine there. (They would be willing to give
me a new hostid license in that situation)

Anyway, anyone thinking of buying Framemaker should give this some serious
thought beforehand.

If anyone wants to E-Mail or call me for further discussion, feel free to
contact me at:

E-Mail: jaz%icd.ab.com at uunet.uu.net

Phone: (216) 646-4668 (work)
       (216) 349-5881 (Home)