FAQ: Product Independent - Licensing Issues


What are the various licensing options for the Reactis products?

Reactis licenses come in one of three forms:
  • Annual Network Floating License.
    • For a period of one year, this gives you the right to use Reactis and obtain support and upgrades. To continue using the software after one year, you must renew the license.
    • The license may be shared among different users within your organization located within the authorized geographic region. To do this, a License Manager must be run on a server accessible to all intended users. The Reactis software may be installed on any number of different machines in your organization and configured to access the license server. The number of simultaneous users of the software cannot exceed the number of licenses you own.
  • Perpetual Node-Locked License.
    • Gives you the right to use Reactis indefinitely on a single machine.
    • For a one year period, you also may obtain support and upgrades.
    • In subsequent years, support and upgrades may be purchased for 18% of then-current license price.
  • Perpetual Network Floating License.
    • Gives you the right to use Reactis indefinitely.
    • For a one year period, you also may obtain support and upgrades.
    • In subsequent years, support/upgrades may be purchased for 18% of then-current license price.
    • The license may be shared as described above for the Annual Network License.


Is technical support included in the price of a license?

Annual network licenses include free support so long as the license has not expired. Perpetual licenses include one year of technical support; thereafter, additional Software Maintenance Service may be purchased for 18% of the then-current license price.


How can I get a copy of the Reactis License Agreement?

If you have a copy of Reactis installed, a copy of the agreement can be found at the top-level of the Reactis installation directory. If you do not have a copy of Reactis, please contact Reactive Systems.


Why did my Reactis license expire?

This happens when you purchase an annual network license of Reactis. When you purchase such a license, you are given permission to use the software and obtain technical support and upgrades for a period of one year. (Multi-year licenses are also available.)

At the end of the license period, your license will expire if you have not renewed it, and you will not be able to use the software until it is renewed.


Why are there annual licenses?

For technical software like Reactis, which is frequently upgraded, a subscription-style licensing model offers several advantages to users: free access to upgrades, lower costs (especially initially), free support and smoother budgeting.

Subscription-style licensing also helps avoid the stagnation of a widely-used product that has largely penetrated its target market. In such cases, when the software is sold under a perpetual license, the vendor has little incentive to continue to improve the product; instead, many software companies embark on the development of new, but perhaps far less useful, products.

At a more philosophical level, we want to think of Reactis as providing a service to our users. This perspective helps us to be constantly on the lookout for ways to improve our tool and its supporting services. An annual license model is our way of demonstrating our commitment to our users, as it gives us a financial incentive to keep them satisfied.


Does support for a perpetual license need to be maintained continuously? In other words, if I do not purchase support one year, but want to do so the next year, do I need to purchase the ``missing year''?

Yes. We understand that this can be unpopular, but in order to include free upgrades in our technical-support package, we unfortunately do not see an alternative to this policy.


My colleague and I want to share a license. Is this allowed?

Yes.