t1f4387@helios.TAMU.EDU (Michael Farlow) (02/22/90)
A friend and I are beginning a HyperCard project that will be distrubuted to new students at Texas A&M to show them were the different computing facilities are located and what types of hardware/software is at those facilities. After we create this stack for A&M, we hope to be able to offer the shell and a 'Construction Stack' to other universities that would like to have it. Also a demo stack will be posted to the usual places. Since we want to be the central distribution site for this stack, we want deliver full working version only to sites who license with the Trustees of Texas A&M (we hope this license to be free, i.e. John Norstad's Disinfectant). The primary reason being for us to offer support, all copies of the stack must be consistent (less site-specific information). As a result, the DEMO would automatically cripple itself after a preset amount of time. Our question is this: Is it morally reprehensible to develop a piece of software that will destroy/cripple itself? We have considered the following options to accomplish this: o Hiding the destruct mechanism inside a _vital_ XCMD or XFCN. o Deletion of the scripts for all the cards/buttons/backgrounds. (This leaves the stack intact, but functionally useless) o OR physical deletion of the stack from the disk. We would appreciate your comments on our methods. WE ARE NOT soliciting views on the morality of cripple-ware itself. What we need is feedback on the least obnoxious method of crippling our stack. Please reply direct to me since I do not read c.s.m a whole lot. A summary will be posted once the replies have died down. Thank you. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Michael Farlow, X098MF@TAMVM1.BITNET MicroComputer Specialist X098MF@TAMVM1.TAMU.EDU Computing Services Center Texas A&M University Thank you, John Norstad!!!
jtn@potomac.ads.com (John T. Nelson) (02/23/90)
I have only a few qualms with crippleware: 1) Unless it's advertised as such, crippleware can confuse the machine's administrator and user when his or her machine crashes unexpectedly. Oh... gee it must be this shareware thing I got off the net. Or MAYBE it's a virus. Or maybe the disk drive has gone bad. How can we tell? If it IS advertised as such well then caveat emptor. 2) Crippleware discourages the distribution of freeware/shareware. When enough people become frustrated with crippleware they will begin boycotting the good stuff (freeware/shareware). Distributing crippleware seems like a good way to insure your development time however it can also have the effect of discouraging the use of network derived software. 3) Gee did *I* REALLY destroy your file system? If the crippleware programmer makes a mistake in the code that either disabels or destroys itself, and ends up wiping away your file system then you can expect to see some pretty heated flames coming your way. Crippleware that inadvertently destroys a user's data is tantamount to a trojan horse. Worse, a programmer who DELIBERATLY tries to distribute trojan horses/viruses could hide behind the claim that "oh it was just crippleware.... so sorry hee hee." That's my $0.2.