The original post: /r/piracy by /u/randyest on 2024-04-27 06:34:29.

If you use any fancy super-expensive EDA design tools from companies like Synopsys, Cadence, Mentor (Siemens), Mathworks, etc. you’re probably familiar with FlexLM. I hear a lot about Denuvo and how tough that nut is to crack (and the drama Empress creates about it), but I don’t think I’ve ever heard FlexLM mentioned. It used to be only for UNIX/Linux but there are now windows versions of those tools and FlexLM as well. And finally high-end PCs can run the tools with moderately-sized designs. I’d never consider doing any commercial work with any illegitimately acquired tool, but it would be pretty cool to be able to do experiments with small designs/limited instances sort of like the EDU FlexLM licenses allow without, you know, having to go back to school after I already have an MSEE.

Is it just an impossible task because FlexLM is server nodelocked (usually) and talks to the mothership to enable “Features” (which would seem to be spoofable somehow), or is it just there’s so little interest in putting effort into such a rarely used toolset?