What is Patron Credit Level (PCL)?

Definition

Patron Credit Level, or PCL for short, is a per-patron attribute, designed to resolve the "offline license check" issue that many users have indicated. By paying a one-time-per-pledge PCL fee, a user can extend this PCL value, and therefore solve the "offline license check" issue, to some extent.

PCL itself is an integer value that can be roughly understood as the "number of future months" of license valid range before the user cancels patronship. All users' PCL value is initially zero. At the PCL=0 special case, the license will invalidate by itself if Internet cannot be reached within 15 days. If a user is a $P/month patron, by prepaying a one-time-per-pledge fee $P*N directly to Genius Vision, the user can increase N to his own PCL value. This PCL will remain valid as long the current pledge is valid. The moment a pledge is changed or canceled, the PCL associated with that pledge will be void. New pledge will need new payment to change PCL value. Currently, the maximum allowed PCL value is 30.

To apply for increase of your PCL value, please fill out this application form. We will be in touch shortly.

More detailed explanation

Following we explain more about PCL:

As one can probably picture, for the Patreon platform to be linked to Genius Vision NVR, as a license verification mechanism, then it's conceivable the NVR local installation must have a persistent Internet connection in order for this to work properly. This, however, will introduce the "offline license check" issue. For example, if a user has a farm located in the outskirt of the city, that only has "occasional" Internet connection, then online-license-check requirement might become a real problem.

To deal with this issue, we introduced a new attribute called "Patron Credit Level", or PCL for short. This PCL attribute is an integer value that can be assigned individually to each patron. This value can be roughly understood as "the number of months" the NVR software needs to check the license status with the server. To alter this value, a patron must pay an additional fee per pledge (not per month).  Let's describe its use by an example:

Let's say there is a patron called Adam, who subscribed the $5/month starting from 2018/1/1. At first, Adam's PCL value is 0 (zero) like everyone else. Adam then downloaded NVR software and activated the license at 2018/1/2. When the license is initially activated, the valid range is 2018/1/2~2018/1/16, precisely 15 days of range. The new Community License scheme is designed to check license status with the server every day. So when the Adam's NVR continue to be running at 2018/1/3, the valid range becomes 2018/1/3~2018/1/17, and so on. As long as the NVR have a persistent Internet connection, it will be always running, until Adam (hopefully not) cancels the patronship. At the moment the patronship is canceled, the license subscription immediately terminates. So, if Adam chooses to terminate patronship at 2018/1/5, the NVR server will be able to run at latest to 2018/1/6, at which timing the NVR will have already checked with the server and find out that the license is actually invalidated, therefore NVR function will cease to work. Adam can, however, choose to sever the Internet connection of the NVR right before he cancels the patronship at 2018/1/5. At that time, the license status is still 2018/1/5~2018/1/19. So as long as Adam keeps the NVR from reaching the Internet, the NVR will continue to work to 2018/1/19.

In the above example, it shows that since Adam can cancel patronship at any moment, we have to treat Adam's credit level as zero. So as soon as Adam's patronship terminates, we want the NVR to cease to function as soon as possible. However, if Adam is willing to predeposit a credit level, this can be changed. This is where PCL (Patron Credit Level) come into play. Currently let us define that by prepaying N months of patronship directly to Genius Vision, the PCL value can be increased by N, only for the current pledge. If the pledge is changed or canceled, PCL will be voided. So following the example, if Adam pays PCL-5-months-fee, which is $5*5 = $25 directly to Genius Vision, Adam's PCL will be updated to 5 for the current pledge. Then, when the NVR license is activated at 2018/1/2, the valid range of the license will become 2018/1/2~2018/6/2. (Note this is an approximated example. We internally use 1 PCL=30 days. Here we use one month for easy-understanding). This means if Adam severs Internet connection and cancel patronship at 2018/1/5, the NVR will still be able to run to 2018/6/5. However, if Adam does not sever Internet connection, the NVR will still cease to function by 2018/1/6. Also, by canceling patronship, it will also make the previously paid PCL void.

We think it is a fair and cost-effective way to deal with offline license checking issue. This payment is one-time per pledge.

The maximum PCL currently allowed is 30. If more is required, please have a discussion with us.