I recall seeing that DAZ was planning a release of DAZ Studio for UNIX and/or Linux eventually. Wouldn't that open up a whole new can 'o' worms with the warezing and licencing? I mean, it's like this: Linux is a muli-user OS, based primarily on a client-server model. Generally one machine is the Linux box and several people use it through X-Terminals or running X clients on their systems, be they Windows, Mac, or other Linux or UNIX boxes. For instance, my Linux box (dodger.org) is in Portland, oregon, and I'm not yet. When I log in and edit a file, I launch WinAXE, SH in, and launch an X session on the server which appears on my display here in Philly. I can then use graphics-based programs like The GIMP, text utilities like vim, and play video games like XBoing and Quake, all without a copy on my windows machine and even possibly without one EXISTING for a Windows system (thuogh it's not hard to cmopile anything Linux for Windows as they usually run on the same hardware). Moreover, someone else can edit THEIR file in VIM at the same time. Now, if DAZ Studio uses a library system anything likje Poser's, the installed files will be in the location of the runtime executable. For instance, if Poser were available for Linux, it would look something like: /usr/local/Metacreations/Poser 4/Runtime/... and that means that if it was world executable like most things are (otherwise only Root or the file owner could use them) then everyone on the system could use Poser and it would be within the licence agreement as it's only installed on one machine. Now, then you have the content. Those libraries would be shared, too. It's possible to make it so that those libraries contain files that are user-owned and only user-readable (root could still read and use them too) so that Poser (or DS) would only read in the files the user owns, and the libraries could be world writable allowing anyone to put thigns there but not read others files. the system is fine for that, but it does mean a different approach than that which currently exists. It would also be possible to make it so that everyone has their own libraries and that DS reads from there -- for instance, /home/dodger/.runtime/Libraries/... in the Poser scheme of things. That's how thing like Netscape work on Linux. Each user has their own bookmarks and so on stored in their home directory. But this is also a different approach and would require a change in the philosophy of how this is gone about, as well as in the licenses. It would even be possible to make a system that uses a similar structure to the existing one and allows all users of the machine to use the library file, but places an flock on it and doesn't let others read it while it's locked. I don't know of anyone doing things this way, but it seems reasonable. It's similar to the per-user licencing for Oracle kinda. I'm just wondering what approach they will take (any DAZ people want to fill in some of the ideas or how much of this has been taken into consideration?). And there's still the fact that an unscrupulous root user could grab copies of anything the end users had if he wanted. But then, root's supposed to be scrupulous -- but the fact that there are spam servers indicates that root often isn't (I am on my box). Anyway, so that about sums up my questions and this is probably more of a musing than anything else. I know that Win2K and NT and even XP are multi-user platforms, but in reality all but NT are rarely used by more than one person or household, and even with NT the multiple users don't usually run applications over the network but instead take turns using the NT box and use networked files on non-NT windows boxes. The spirit of things is different there.

note to self - Test if Poser 5 can run from a shared network folder... ;P

You forget: DAZ|Studio is open source (SDK license if I recall correctly.) Go ahead and make as many copies of DAZ|Studio as you want :) (otherwise, it's pure ease to stick the critter in a chroot jail and call it good. Won't keep root out, but then, a Windows Administrator can get and do what he wants, too... he merely has to take ownership of the file.) Cheers, /P

Most common Linux libs are parked somewhere on /usr/lib/... , which may or may not let a user get at them - root can modify that to taste. /P

...The base package will be freely available - this would obviously not apply to the plugins, which would depend on the inclinations of whoever wrote 'em.. /P

And the content libraries, which was what I was expressing concern over. What I mean is, if you buy Vicki 3 and install it to use with DAZ studio, and you're not root, I'm just wondering if they have that planned out or not. It wouldn't want to see a DAZ Studio for Linux that only allows you to be the root user to run it because of concern over the content libraries (geometries and CR2 type things and such)

Couldn't this same thing be done now on OS X? Because I'd love to run Poser from my desktop right here at the notebook, since I have more content than HD space over here.

Ah - I see what you mean, Dodger. The trick is to create a user profile, a file named " .dazuser " or somesuch in the user's home directory; in it is the preferences as to where the files are found (sort of like Poser 5's ability to choose which Runtime directory you want.) That way, DAZ|Studio points to the user's specific content and perhaps a generic directory of the default models that has read-only privileges. In this case, each user can stash their own content into their own specified directories. If they want to share those, it will be up to them, and at their own legal peril, just like if I wanted to share my Runtime folder in Windows. A further protection would be to rig DAZ|Studio to create a .lock file when it starts, so that only one user at a time can run it, no matter if it's remote or local. dampeoples: Yep - and the same thing could be done on Windows 2000 Server, by firing up Terminal Services. /P