Important WURFL Licensing Update for Ektron deployments

  • Updated

The Ektron CMS400.net product line (beginning with version 8.02 and including subsequent releases), includes an add-on service for detecting Mobile devices and delivering device-optimized experiences through a data repository that has changed its licensing model.  This data repository, know as the Wireless Universal Remote Resource File (WURFL), provides data that allows for a match to be made between the HTTP user-agent string contained in each web request and a particular device, which was subsequently used by Ektron Inc. in the CMS400.net product.

The commercial license between Ektron Inc. and ScientiaMobile, Inc., the owner of WURFL, is expiring on April 3rd, 2016.  At that time, any usage of the WURFL data repository in CMS400.net deployments shall be unlicensed in its current state.

Episerver, Inc. (previously known as Ektron, Inc.) is committed to providing the highest value to its customers, and wish to inform you of your three options to address the end of the licensure to WURFL.  

 

  1. You may disable the WURFL data repository in your deployment so that you are no using WURFL in an unlicensed manner.
  2. You may contact Scientiamobile, Inc. to obtain a license directly.  ScientiaMobile, Inc. has provided a guide to transitioning.
  3. You may replace the WURFL data repository with the 51 Degrees(TM) Lite library by 51Degrees.mobi, which is licensed under an Mozilla Public License open-source license agreement.

 

To disable the WURFL data repository, you must follow the steps below.

If you wish to re-license WURFL, you may contact Scientiamobile, Inc. directly.  Once terms are agreed between you and Scientiamobile, Inc., you may follow the steps in reverse order.  As Episerver, Inc./Ektron, Inc. is not a party to such license, terms negotiated will be between you and Scientiamobile, Inc. 

To replace the WURFL data repository with the 51 Degrees™ Lite library, you may follow the steps provided under the section “To replace the WURFL data repository with the 51 Degrees(TM) repository”.

 

Follow the steps below to disable and remove device detection. To determine if you are using device detection to begin with, look at the ek_enabledevicedetection key below. If set to true, you could be using it. 

  1. Open your website's root folder
  2. Open the Web.config file in the site root
  3. Locate the following key in the appsettings tag
  4. Change the value to "false" if it is set to true so it looks like below
  5. Save the web.config file. (note: if you wish to re-license WURFL directly with Scientiamobile, Inc., you will need to restore these files)
  6. Open the App_Data folder
  7. Remove the following 3 files
    • web_browsers_patch.xml
    • wurfl.xml.gz
    • wurfl.zip
  8. Open the Bin folder
  9. Remove the following 2 dll's
    • Wurfl.dll
    • Wurfl.Aspnet.Extensions.dll