From: dawson@cs.cornell.edu (Dawson Dean)
Subject: Re: protection == !piracy
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 03:28:51 GMT


> All I can say is that if you do it and it gets in my face in
> the smallest way, I won't buy your product now or in the future,

Yeah, it has to be innocuous. That's why I mentioned some examples
of things that do and do not seem to be in the right direction.

> and I'll damn you to hell if I am ever asked to recommend it.

Hmmmm.....


> An early beta of a product we both know about included just
> such a net-broadcasting feature, and it cost me two days work
> before I figured out why I had to reboot A/UX every time I
> "es'd" out of one of its crashes.  Evidentally it had "registered"
> itself on my one-Mac, one-printer AppleTalk net and didn't
> have a way to clean up after itself unless the program was
> quit from properly.  That's an option I don't always have,
> regardless of whether it's my app or yours that sends me
> into MacsBug.

You raise a good point. So, part of the package should be 
a runtime program that deregisters a program after a crash.
The normal program performs periodic checks to see if it is
registered, and quits if not. If it crashes, then run something
to deregister the program. Maybe there is a better solution
than this. Maybe we need to educate users about network 
lisencing the same way workstations users are aware of it.

The whole point is, let's discuss this. It shouldn't be a black
art and it will take some of the same evolutionary process that
the rest of a typical application has required. 


> If you worry about people ripping you off, too bad.  My money
> is going to spent on companies who are willing to trust me
> at least as much as I trust them.  Especially when I send
> "Rock-Solid" v.1.0 money that performs as advertised and
> get back software that ...  you can figure out the rest.
....
> What I am saying is that in the "trust" part of the equation
> cuts both ways. I've been pretty patient with the commercial software

   True, but a certain amount of security is probably necessary.
I always pay my bills, but I don't get mad if the bank makes a big
deal about checking up on me when I take out a car loan. Within
reason. I can demand that I only do business with a car dealer
that trusts me, but they can't do business that way. Sure they trust
me after they check my credit rating. They trust me knowing that
if I stop paying they zap my credit rating and prevent me from future
loans. They trust me knowing that if I stop payment they can (and do)
take me to court. They trust me knowing that if I stop paying they
can pass my account to a collection agency. A software company also
needs some protection, since it is clear that piracy exists.

   Yes, the customer also puts trust in the company to live up to its
marketing hype. This is also important, and there needs to be a
solution like a refund for software that crashes. Perhaps lisencing can
make this more feasible by debilitating a refunded program, but I have
no idea how to do this and it may be impossible. 

   Anyway, what happens when you buy a car and it doesn't work? There is
either a factory recall or you return it (California still has a lemon law
if I remember correctly). In either case, there is protection for the
customer as well and software also needs this. But, that is a separate
problem, and saying that the company cannot be protected because we
haven't thought of a good way to protect the customer doesn't make sense.
The solution will come through reducing overall risk in a software purchase
for everyone involved, not in maintaining it at a mutually high level.

   The market may feel so strongly about lisencing
that companies cannot sell software that uses it. That would be
too bad, but it may happen (nobody or few people sell write protected
disks anymore). However, it is clear that piracy happens, although it
may be that the needs of the users cannot be met while preventing
piracy.


-- 
 ________________________________________________________________
| Dawson Dean                    Internet: dawson@cs.cornell.edu |
| Cornell Computer Science       Office:   (607) 255-1068        |
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer