ray@othervax.UUCP (Raymond D. Dunn) (07/26/85)
> .... I believe I have a right to carry a > program home with me to use there (or I might buy a new machine > as ecsvax!dmimi pointed out) - I can carry the dongle with me, > but what if that one dongle is needed for two programs, and I'ld > like to leave one at work for other people to use. Or at work > we may have several programs from one vendor, but we'd like to use > them on different cpus - this couldn't be done if they all needed > the same dongle or serial number. > --henry schaffer This is EXACTLY why protection schemes are necessary!!!! ------- You do NOT have the right to carry the program home! You do NOT have the right to use it on several CPU's simultaneously! You do NOT have the right to pass GO! You do NOT have the right to collect $200! You ONLY have the right to play by the published rules of the game, NOT the rules that YOU unilateraly think should be applicable to you. You ONLY have the right to do what you pay for as specified in the license agreement, however restrictive or relaxed. You (should) read this before buying the product. The same rules apply to all products. One difference with software is that it is so easy to copy (thus the licensing agrrement). Ever tried copying a car?. No, books are NOT easy to copy to give something as good as the original, and in general, cost more to copy than to buy. If they were easy/cheap to copy then the publishing industry would have taken steps to protect their product from THEFT (what you are doing when you copy a product disk for other than backup purposes). I remember from the past several newsletter-like products which were printed in a light-blue colour which did not photo-copy well. Do you expect to be able to use your car tyres on both your cars simultaneously (wouldn't it be nice if we could copy them to have a backup for when the originals wore out :-)? Write-protected floppy disks are NOT particularly fragile things. Sure we have all had disk problems, but what percentage of these were not associated with writing/deleting/finger-trouble/bad-handling - extremely small! (Its quite ridiculous, these supermarkets, I tried to return a dozen eggs today because I let them drop and smashed them, and they wouldn't replace them - who do they think they are! :-) The better products supply a backup disk and will replace the original if and when you have to switch to the backup - if this takes too long, or your pet product does not supply a backup, lets discuss how to clean up this act (e.g. software stores should be geared to replace products in exactly the same way as other retail outlets, and for the same reasons). Psychologically however, it is frustating to have to go to this bother when you know a disk is (should be) so easy to copy. Psychologically it is even difficult for a software literate person to buy any piece of software - he knows he could do it himself if only he had the time - the classic do-it-yourself syndrome. There a similar phenominon which makes an otherwise totally honest person think nothing of pilfering a gizmo from work - it frustrates that he/she has to buy it when it is so available at work and "they have thousands and anyway a lot get wasted and one won't be missed". It's understandable, but that doesn't make it legal/moral. Yes, many of the license agreements are not reasonable, in particular, the lack of warranty should be a source of concern, but remember, if a warranty is included, this is going to SIGNIFICANTLY raise the cost of the product, as would better access to technical support from the vendor - how many minutes of technical support time/warranty servicing, does it take to wipe out the profit of a $100 product? A final point, if these software products are desirably things, then the software houses that produce them must survive. This means making a profit. This means (as well as producing good products etc.) protecting themselves from theft in such a manner that does not mean their products are rejected - they cannot possible rely on the population to protect their interests. As the initially quoted article demonstrates, that population at best, in all good faith, is only protecting its own parochial interests. Ray Dunn. Manager, PC Product Architecture, Philips Information Systems Ltd. ....philabs!micomvax!othervax!ray (P.S. Has anyone out there got a version of <copywrit> which will copy the latest issue of dBATE XXIV? :-)
hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) (07/28/85)
In a perfectly reasonable discussion of problems with copy
protection methods which rely on serial numbers of dongles or
cpus, I mention the problem with running two different programs
on two different machines if the two programs require the same
dongle. The referenced article flames me for advocating the
running of one program on several cpus simultaneously!
Let me say it again. The copyright law, and most software
licenses, allow you to use a purchased program on different
cpus at *different* times. ("You may physically transfer the
Program from one of your own computers to another of your
computers provided that the Program is used on only one
computer at a time." - Quoted from the Sorcim Corp. License
for Supercalc 3) I could not do this if the program was
keyed to a specific dongle which was used by many other
programs and was in use with another cpu that day (or year.)
The keying to a cpu serial number was (is) common in the
mainframe world - in which you don't change cpus frequently,
in which the cpu serial number doesn't change because your
computer was repaired by swapping mother boards, etc.
Methods appropriate for expensive and big mainframes may
very well be inappropriate for micros.
While I am strongly opposed to software piracy, I also
am opposed to vendors making their products in such a way
that I can't use them effectively.
(pardon the semi-flame)
--henry schaffer n c state univWANCHO@SIMTEL20.ARPA (Frank J. Wancho) (07/28/85)
Ray, It seems you either misread Henry's message or chose to, and Henry didn't get the answers to his questions in the process. The answer to all the questions is that there is exactly one unique "dongle" sold with each correspondingly encoded program copy. This technique enforces the concept of that program copy in execution on one machine at a time. Implicit is the right to run that one copy on *any* machine you choose, including taking the program and the dongle home if company policy allows it. Next time you wish to respond with a tirade, stop. Read the message several times and then consider if your response is appropriate. Yours wasn't, and you owe Henry an apology. --Frank
slerner@sesame.UUCP (Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner) (07/30/85)
> Let me say it again. The copyright law, and most software > licenses, allow you to use a purchased program on different > cpus at *different* times. ("You may physically transfer the > Program from one of your own computers to another of your > computers provided that the Program is used on only one > computer at a time." - Quoted from the Sorcim Corp. License > for Supercalc 3) I could not do this if the program was > keyed to a specific dongle which was used by many other > programs and was in use with another cpu that day (or year.) Generaly, a program does not share a key with another program. Rather, the key plugs into a key ring which acts as a communication interface to the computer. If you want to run your software on another system, just unplug the key (it is about the size of an office key) and carry it to the other system. If you want to transfer several programs at once, you can carry the entire key ring. This technology does not lock you to one machine. It does lock you to one machine _at_a_time_. (Which is as it should be.) -- Opinions expressed are public domain, and do not belong to Lotus Development Corp. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner {genrad|ihnp4|ima}!wjh12!talcott!sesame!slerner {cbosgd|harvard}!talcott!sesame!slerner slerner%sesame@harvard.ARPA
ray@othervax.UUCP (Raymond D. Dunn) (07/30/85)
> You do NOT have the right to carry the program home! > You do NOT have the right to use it on several CPU's simultaneously! > You do NOT have the right to pass GO! > You do NOT have the right to collect $200! > You ONLY have the right to play by the published rules of the game.... > . > . > Ray Dunn > > In a perfectly reasonable discussion of problems with copy > > protection methods which rely on serial numbers of dongles or > > cpus, I mention the problem with running two different programs > > on two different machines if the two programs require the same > > dongle. The referenced article flames me for advocating the > > running of one program on several cpus simultaneously! > > . > > . > > --henry schaffer n c state univ Yes - I agree, (public) apologies Henry, I chose to quote the wrong point from the wrong article from a long series of articles on the subject of software protection which at best were sympathetic to the need for protection only if it did not infringe on that letter writer's particular ideas of what he should be able to do with it. As to flaming you Henry, ah well, I thought I tried to be humorous about it, but if you take differences of opinion seriously, then in future I shall use the impersonal "one" instead of "you", i.e. "One does NOT have the right etc etc" I'm glad to see you do not seem to disagree with the basic points made. You are right of course, each program requires its own dongle (just as every real man does :-), now, hmmm, if we just put some ROM in the dongle - HEY, we can throw away that stupid floppy disk all together, and sell all software on a ROM CARTRIDGE readable to ram from an i/o port! By the way I haven't seen any discussion (may have missed it) on the repercussions of networks and thus shared copies of proprietary software - do we really have to have multiple copies of a program on the network? I still believe protection problems MUST be solved soon for the software industry to survive. Ray Dunn. Philips Information Systems. ....philabs!micomvax!othervax!ray
nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) (07/31/85)
> > You do NOT have the right to carry the program home! > > You do NOT have the right to use it on several CPU's simultaneously! > > You do NOT have the right to pass GO! > > You do NOT have the right to collect $200! > > You ONLY have the right to play by the published rules of the game.... > > . > > . > > Ray Dunn > > I'm glad to see you do not seem to disagree with the basic points made. Well *I* do. As long as those are your "rules" I will simply choose not to play your game by not buying your software, and by urging any and all to do the same. > I still believe protection problems MUST be solved soon for the software > industry to survive. > Ray Dunn. Philips Information Systems. It's already been solved, you just haven't admitted it yet. Borland, along with other software firms, now make NOT COPY PROTECTED an important selling point. Carrying that point further, Addison Wesley, who sells an IBM PC version of Knuth's TeX typesetting formatter, has just decided on a site licence policy for that program, which, for $5,000 for a whole institution (e.g. The University of Texas), says: You DO have the right to carry the program home! You DO have the right to use it on several CPU's simultaneously! You DO have the right to pass GO! You DO have the right to collect $200! (after taxes ...) These ARE the published rules of the game.... The right to make unlimited copies for use by any member of the institution, faculty, staff, or students, on any or all computers they have access to, is granted for the one-time fee. Save your dongles, folks; they'll be real collector's items *very* soon ... -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin {allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather nather%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (07/31/85)
In article <1775@ecsvax.UUCP> hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) writes: > I could not do this if the program was >keyed to a specific dongle which was used by many other >programs and was in use with another cpu that day (or year.) Actually, to my mind, there is an even worse problem with this type of protection scheme. What if I have purchased four or five programs from different vendors each with its own dongle(or key disk), unless I can somehow attach or install *all* of the dongles(disks) simultaneously on the same machine I must continually swap dongles(disks) every time I switch programs. This is utterly unacceptible if the programs are frequently used in rotation(such as an editor and a compiler). -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) {trwrb|allegra|cbosgd|hplabs|ihnp4|aero!uscvax!akgua}!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen or {ttdica|quad1|bellcore|scgvaxd}!psivax!friesen
jxyp@lanl.ARPA (08/02/85)
[Apologies if this reaches you twice... problems with an upstream feed.] > You do NOT have the right to carry the program home! > You do NOT have the right to use it on several CPU's simultaneously! > You do NOT have the right to pass GO! > You do NOT have the right to collect $200! > You ONLY have the right to play by the published rules of the game, NOT the > rules that YOU unilateraly think should be applicable to you. > You ONLY have the right to do what you pay for as specified in the > license agreement, however restrictive or relaxed. You (should) read > this before buying the product. Large employers had an attitude toward their employees that was very much like this during the early stages of the industrial revolution. The resulting milieu became intolerable, and labor unions were born. As an infant industry, we *could* endeavor to establish a rapport with our marketplace by responding to its needs. Instead, we often satisfy only that subset of needs which is sufficient to sell products while depending heavily on marketing hype and the mystique surrounding our products to exaggerate their perceived value. Our customers are intelligent enough to notice. The rules published with most software licenses are so blatantly unilateral in favor of the vendor that they have become an object of ridicule. Licenses accompanying copy-protected software tend to be the worst offenders. > Do you expect to be able to use your car tyres on both your cars > simultaneously Of course not, silly. But I do expect the freedom to buy a spare pair of wheels to mount my snow tires on, and to put those wheels on any car I choose. Tire companies, you see, suffer the misfortunes of having no mystique associated with their product, and of selling in such a broad-based marketplace that their customers wouldn't put up with such nonsensical restrictions. > Write-protected floppy disks are NOT particularly fragile things. Sure we > have all had disk problems, but what percentage of these were not associated > with writing/deleting/finger-trouble/bad-handling - extremely small! Floppy disks ARE particularly fragile things when placed in the hands of the people who use them. If a temporary overwrites the Lotus binary or formats the hard disk with the installed copy of dBaseIII, h{is,er} employer suffers a considerable loss. Tell h{er,im} that floppies aren't fragile. Our failure to address this problem with a reasonable solution places us at a disadvantage when we ask our customers to be reasonable in their use of our products. > A final point, if these software products are desirably things, then the > software houses that produce them must survive. This means making a profit. ^^^^^^^ <-------------------> ^^^^^^ Software buyers aptly believe that our industry is inordinately profitable, if not predatory. Rather than concern ourselves with the harm this image does us, we love nothing more than to brag about it. Small wonder that we aren't taken seriously when it's our most bloated representatives who moan the loudest about illicit copies and use the most restrictive licenses and protection schemes. -- Jay Plett {cmcl2,ihnp4}!lanl!unm-la!jay {gatech,ucbvax}!unmvax!unm-la!jay jxyp@lanl.ARPA
nather@utastro.UUCP (Ed Nather) (08/02/85)
> Software buyers aptly believe that our industry is inordinately profitable, > if not predatory. Rather than concern ourselves with the harm this image > does us, we love nothing more than to brag about it. Small wonder that > we aren't taken seriously when it's our most bloated representatives who > moan the loudest about illicit copies and use the most restrictive licenses > and protection schemes. > Jay Plett I don't think this perception is universal. For example, there are people selling inexpensive, well-written programs that receive support directly from their users. Bob Wallace, who sells the text editor PC-Write as a "shareware" product, is not perceived as "bloated"; Mark DeSmet, who sells a complete C development system, including a screen editor, for just over $100, is not perceived as greedy -- and both products are excellent. Part of the "image" problem depends on how the product itself is perceived. During the recent "oil crisis" the OPEC countries were seen as greedy, and were widely resented because oil was seen as a cheap item made artificially expensive by fiat. True or false, many people perceive software in the same light: the developers point to their development costs, their detractors point to the ease and minuscule cost of making copies. It's hard to justify high software prices when the original development cost has long since been paid, and current profits go into the pockets of managers and salesmen. The semiconductor industry lowers prices when production is ramped up and development costs are paid off. Check the current price of the 8088 chip, and the current cost of Lotus 1-2-3, and note the contrast. -- Ed Nather Astronomy Dept, U of Texas @ Austin {allegra,ihnp4}!{noao,ut-sally}!utastro!nather nather%utastro.UTEXAS@ut-sally.ARPA
rjh@calmasd.UUCP (Bob Hofkin) (08/02/85)
In article <433@othervax.UUCP> ray@othervax.UUCP (Raymond D. Dunn) writes: > >You ONLY have the right to do what you pay for as specified in the > license agreement, however restrictive or relaxed. > >The same rules apply to all products. One difference with software is that >it is so easy to copy (thus the licensing agrrement). Wrong! If I *BUY* the *PRODUCT* I can use it any way I want, subject to law. This is not the same as *LICENSING* the *USE* of a product. I do not license the use of a shirt; I may lend it, copy it, or resell it as I choose. I do not license a book. I can lend or resell it but I may not copy it [legal restriction]. ENFORCING copy restriction is irrelevant. Record companies have the same problem. Why is mass-marketed software different? The store sells me a package but I only bought the box, disk, and manual. The software is lent on sufferance by a vendor, who won't even maintain it. They should cover defects *AND* normal wear and tear [like an apartment rental]. Do you know any other product marketed this way [in the USA]?
slerner@sesame.UUCP (Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner) (08/05/85)
> In article <1775@ecsvax.UUCP> hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) writes: > > I could not do this if the program was > >keyed to a specific dongle which was used by many other > >programs and was in use with another cpu that day (or year.) > > Actually, to my mind, there is an even worse problem with > this type of protection scheme. What if I have purchased four or five > programs from different vendors each with its own dongle(or key disk), > unless I can somehow attach or install *all* of the dongles(disks) > simultaneously on the same machine I must continually swap dongles(disks) > every time I switch programs. This is utterly unacceptible if the > programs are frequently used in rotation(such as an editor and a > compiler). > -- > > Sarima (Stanley Friesen) > The ADAPSO keyring system holds multiple keys simultaneously. Since the designers of the ADAPSO system have to live with what they create, a LOT of thought went into making the system as transparent and unobtrusive as possible. For most users, they will buy a package, install the key in their keyring, shove it behind their computer and let it gather dust. Hard disks/LANs/RAM disks, will all be fully usable without restriction, and you can make functional backups to your hearts content. BTW: Because of the higher security offered w/ keys, some manufacturers will be setting up their disks to *encourage* distribution of copies. (In other words, if you try and run w/o the key, the disk will either go into a demo mode or allow you to run but not save or print your work...) Also, expect software returns to start being accepted, 30 day trial periods, legitamite rental of software. Also, software can now be sold at different prices for limited use. (Full price of unlimited use, discounts for 50 use keys or 6 month keys &c. Use your imagination to figure out what you can do with the capabilities of a key...) ============== A previous posting brought up the patching issue again. As previously stated, if complex program routines are executed in the key and not in the host CPU, patching will cause the software to malfunction. You say that you can reverse engineer the routines? Even when their are several random dummy paramaters going in and out? Even when the routine varies by a state machine? [FLAME OFF] -- Opinions expressed are public domain, and do not belong to Lotus Development Corp. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner {genrad|ihnp4|ima}!wjh12!talcott!sesame!slerner {cbosgd|harvard}!talcott!sesame!slerner slerner%sesame@harvard.ARPA
che@ptsfb.UUCP (Mitch Che) (08/08/85)
In article <250@sesame.UUCP> slerner@sesame.UUCP (Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner) writes: >A previous posting brought up the patching issue again. As previously >stated, if complex program routines are executed in the key and not >in the host CPU, patching will cause the software to malfunction. >You say that you can reverse engineer the routines? Even when their >are several random dummy paramaters going in and out? Even when the >routine varies by a state machine? [FLAME OFF] Hmm, still doesn't take care of the "black box" boys who hang a passive, intelligent device onto the RS-232 and monitor the data stream. I expect to see a hardware product in about 90 days of the first software package protected by a dongle. Yes, you can make the dongle- software interaction extremely sophisticated, but stable? At $5.00 a dongle? Gee, if you attach a dongle consisting of a CRAY-2 to the RS-232 port, I'd bet it would be almost unbreakable... Unless I had a CRAY too. The possibilities are astounding. Dongle Wars - The Movie... -- Mitch Che Pacific Bell --------------------------------------- disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer, too (415) 823-2438 uucp: {ihnp4,dual}!ptsfa!ptsfb!che