| Re: Cost of student version of IDL [message #81096 is a reply to message #80073] |
Tue, 07 August 2012 04:48   |
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JM[2]
Messages: 1
Registered: August 2012
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Junior Member |
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Maybe the University may buy floating licenses and share them with registered students over a virtual private network?. Thus they would work with IDL at their quarters.
You do not need as many licenses as students. You would even get some license manager that releases the license after X minutes of not using the program, for avoiding accaparation of the licenses. This is the way that ArcGIS licenses are shared in my organization and it is much cheaper.
Else the floating licenses would be shared at the university facilities, if a VPN is not available.
I do not know wether Exelis has already thought of something like that. IDL is an amazing tool and they should take care of students, the users of tomorrow.
Best regards,
J.M.
On Tuesday, May 8, 2012 5:21:36 PM UTC+2, Kenneth P. Bowman wrote:
> I am going back into the classroom next fall to teach IDL to undergraduates
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> after spending the last few years as department head. The course alternates
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> between IDL and Matlab, and we have talked about adding a Python version section.
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> I am working on ways to get students to spend more time outside of class reading
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> my book and working IDL examples in order to create more time in class to work
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> with students individually.
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> To accomplish this, students need to have a copy of IDL on their personal
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> computers. I looked at the Exelis website yesterday and found that the student
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> edition of IDL is $89 ($149 with the IMSL library). That didn't seem too bad
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> until I realized that that price is for a 1-year license! So a sophomore taking
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> my course would need to pay at least $270 to keep a working IDL license until
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> graduation. Knowing students as I do, most will simply let their licenses
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> lapse.
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> For reference, my IDL textbook is $42 on Amazon. When my text was first
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> released (2006), a non-expiring student IDL license was $49.
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> We make IDL available in our labs, but the inconvenience of coming to the campus
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> guarantees that students will only use IDL when they *have* to.
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> For comparison, I see that Mathworks charges $99 for a student Matlab license
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> with no time limit. They require proof of enrollment to move the license to a
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> new machine after 4 years, and they charge for upgrades.
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> In the current environment (with free alternatives like Python), does the IDL
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> student pricing make sense to anyone?
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> Has anyone worked out better ways to get students access to IDL?
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>
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> Ken Bowman
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