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Subject:A softer word for "honesty" or "integrity" ? From:"McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> To:"techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 25 Jun 2013 00:13:31 -0400
Imagine that in the past, certain abilities of some of a company's products were available in multiples from 2 to 20... but in reality, all 20 were usable, and upgrade licenses were merely "paper" permissions to use more than the customer had previously paid for. That is, that nameless company relied on the honor system. This didn't need explaining in the docs.
After a certain product version, however, upgrades have recently become "physically" effective, and are now tied to product serial numbers (validated by internal certificates) in an effective manner. No longer could a customer cheat... not that anyone ever did. If they ever called the company's Tech Support, the tech could see how many they'd paid for, and how many they were actually using... :-)
But now that the company is using the new upgrade model, the documentalist needs to explain that the old "honor" system is out - except for existing systems already owned by customers. So, for those already-in-the-field systems, even after they update software and firmware, they still have "physical" access to the full complement (whether paid for or not), and the vendor company still relies on the /h/o/n/o/r/ or /i/n/t/e/g/r/i/t/y/ or ______ of the customer to use only the licenses they have actually purchased. This could become important if, as an example, the customer is running HA groups of the product. Previously, all the members of an HA group would "just work". Now, if they don't all have the same number of licensed subunits, then the entire group would be limited to the number available to the unit with the fewest licenses... just as one example where there could be real consequences, and why the difference between honor-system licenses and actual, effective serial-number-linked licenses needs some .... pre-emptive comment.
What nice, inoffensive word would go in that blank space, to convey the idea without offering insult (especially to anyone who might have... er... um... previously succumbed to temptation)? Should the writer just say "compliance", perhaps? Thesaurus goes in many directions, not all helpful.
Thanks,
-k
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