informix license and specific errorcodes

Hi, AFAIK, there is no such physical thing as an informix license on an informix installation. You can't really say once X number of users connect to this informix engine, it will give license errors. Nor you can check how many licenses an engine is installed with or how many are in use any time. The only relevant thing is the user threads that you can control with the NETTYPE. I guess when you want to control the access to the engine for performance reasons etc. that's the only way to do it. (Let me know if this understanding is not right). Now, I have an application that opens a database using 'database <name>' in an esql code. It then checks for return code of 25571 and if so, it gives a out of license error. My questions are: 1. When I set NETTYPE to say 3 userthreads and bring up(and keep up) isql sessions, I get error 25588 on the 4th session. So which one of the 25571 or 25588 is an indication of no more users can connect OR of license error ? 2. If you see descriptions of the two, 25571 mentions of the user thread problem and 25588 does not. I expected other way around. 3. I only get 25588 error on my test. How can you force 25571 to happen ? 4. Does checking for license in this way make sense ? Please also cc me in reply if possible. Thanks -AH