The thing I find most frustrating here is that Steinberg seems to be willing to throw out the convenience of honest users in exchange for the appearance of security. As has already been pointed out, there is not truly bulletproof security here. If an unscrupulous user wants to break Steinberg’s system, they will. So the only thing that is certain, is that the new system will be a significant burden to Dorico users and a significant barrier to adoption by new users.
I know many people hate subscriptions and continuous checks, but if there was a “Cloud eLicenser” option that required my computer to check in with a server once every 10 days or something, I would much rather have that than any of the backwards-looking solutions proposed so far.
This whole thing is just extraordinarily frustrating to me. And it’s only more frustrating when the application I read about on the blog is so compelling. (I think this is really the source of the ire on this board. People are really really excited about Dorico, and then the licensing scheme comes as an unexpect FU/gut-punch at the end.) I know Daniel and the Dorico team don’t make these kinds of decisions, but they’re the only people we can complain to.