Offiicially, the license does transfer with the machine, but is for a specific version (e.g. 6.2 or 4D1-2.0) Perhaps current practice has changed at SGI, but one of my machines came with a license for MIPSpro C/C++ 7.2.1, and they told me so at SGI (so it doesn't seem to expire). The problem is finding that version . . . you see more 7.3's around now.