>I have registered a lot of shareware over the past decade and more. In fact, I have ended up with a whole CD-R that I label 'registered >shareware' that has folders with all the shareware installers and the cd keys, license files, etc. that are collected with them.
' 1. I've outlived more than a couple of developers, both in the sense that individuals died and that companies vanished. I may or may not ever use their software again, but that's my decision not theirs.
2. I've used software in emulation of 20+ year old hardware, and not just for games.
I will buy software that gives me a license key which I am responsible for keeping.
I will not buy software that's tied to some specific device (e.g., Synchrosoft or ILok dongle, don't even assume "USB" or current architecture), nor will I buy anything that has to "call home" (will you still be answering in 20 years? I'm not willing to take the chance that you'll answer *tomorrow*.)
In the work place, if you don't offer licensing that allows site-wide installation without putting a bookkeeping hardship on the IT manager, and without requiring an internet connection for every install or reinstall, they are going to buy your competitor's product.
You don't want to make the copy protection so complex that the cracked versions end up being buggy. There's this gray area where your paying customer ends up using the cracked version because the legitimate version is impaired by the copy protection. This used to happen all the time, and was actually instituted as a policy for one product in a place where I worked (complete with opinions from the corporate attorneys in support of the idea -- turns out it wasn't illegal, at least not at the time.)
Another problem is that you have to consider the cracked version that WILL be out there (if your product is interesting enough to be noticed), will serve as a form of advertising. If the crack is too hard to do, the cracked version will be buggy as hell as a result, and the advertising you get from the cracked version being out there will harm your reputation.
Another thing to consider is the fact that, as the very first line of your sales pitch, you are saying "we don't trust you, the shitbag customer." That's what *I* hear when I find out I'm supposed to have a synchrosoft dongle or that I won't be allowed to try out the program on an isolated machine before putting it in production because activation is required and will disable the program if I put it on another host.
Another thing to consider is that software activation is really "de-activation." You are putting a system in place to disable the software, with a hard cryptographic scheme to keep it disabled. Why do you imagine your prospective customer wants that? No matter how hard you try, there's no way you can spin that as a benefit to them. It benefits the distributor, in theory, but only by presenting the idea that the customer is considered a hostile party, even a criminal, which cannot possibly help the marketing.
Here's the deal: If the software is used in the means of production of my creative work, I will not tolerate YOUR cryptographic control in that process unless I have all keys.
I can accept something like a license key, where I am responsible for keeping the key and keeping the installation media. If I lose one of those, and cannot use the software in the future (e.g., long after you are dead, perhaps even on emulated hardware), that was my responsibility.
However, I cannot use dongles, challenge/response, online or telephone or snail mail activation, or anything else that serves to disable the software.
This is particularly true of any music production software. If there's a mechanism to disable the software as some sort of license protection scheme, I can't use it. I can't use it, partly because of my position on copyright (putting your cryptographic controls in the path of my own creative work abridges MY copyright!), and I can't use it because I'm risk averse (I can't perform with a software instrument that has a USB dongle, I can't record with software that decides it needs to call home, and I can't really use anything that does not allow me, with no communication with anyone else required, to put together a spare host and re-install hardware on a moment's notice.)
Maybe I'm the only person in the world that wouldn't buy your software because of your copy protection scheme, and maybe I'm not.
But I urge you to consider whether you are putting your interests ahead of your customers' (e.g., elevating the need to protect your copyright to the level that it abridges theirs), and to walk a mile in your customers' shoes and consider how your position will be regarded by them.
My reaction to some copy protection schemes is to be fundamentally insulted, and to be entirely unable to enter into any kind of relationship because the company has asked me to surrender my rights and treated the whole thing as though it were reasonable. My position has nothing to do with the right to make copies of software, and everything to do with the right to use the software as the means of production to produce my own creative work and to reproduce it in the future.
Here's an idea: If you *must* use a dongle, make the dongle something that's (1) eminently useful, and (2) essential to the operation. Most dongles are just there to disable the software; that's their only function.
My suggestion is to just distribute a license key, and provide a trial version that works well enough that it's worthless to crack. You'll see keygens and cracks out there anyway, no matter what. Think of it as feedback metrics on the penetration of your product into the mindshare. If you make your copy protection scheme too good, the cracks will be buggy, and will serve as bad advertising, ruining your reputation.
Or does it suddenly elevate the stature of a functionary of the European Government to greater significance? This gives him something to bargain with. A position that he could be persuaded to back down from, for some consideration in return.
The EU Commissioner knows as well as anyone else, just how impossible it is to get agreement among all the member nations on issues of the slightest controversy.
But the slashdot crowd responds as though every player in any government has absolute authority to make a decree and that decree becomes law. Hint: Some of the largest economic players in the EU (i.e., not Italy) happen to have the culture of Free Speech indoctrinated into their societies and legal systems.
>How can we learn from our past if our past is blurred?
One thing we learn from the past is that it's always distorted. Is there anything really new about internet censorship? Do Europeans consider free speech or free press important enough to kill, die, dissolve political alliances or revoke currency in order to protect them?
Freedom of speech is one of the very few things actually *worth* killing or dying to protect. But do Europeans feel that way? Or are they willing to surrender their rights?
>Why would one NEED to drive in Portland is the question I'm left with, after having visited there recently.
I can't imagine living in Oregon or anywhere in the Northwest and not having a car. Are you referring to public transportation (which is decent) or bicycling?
Yeah, it would be nice to live up on the hill within walking distance of OHSU. Got 800 grand I can borrow to buy the house?
"Programming, on the other hand, can be done by anybody with a Computer Science or related mathematical degree, usually a two year Associate's degree. India is graduating 50,000 people with this training EVERY YEAR."
I've seen enough of their work (and managed projects to *re-do* enough of their work) that I'm really not afraid of Indian outsourcing, at least not longterm. Project managers (and more importantly, Boards of Directors) aren't stupid or blind. They look at postmortems. The fad is old enough that its aggregate metrics are coming in.
One driver of the India outsourcing fad has been, simply, that it's essential to have on your management résumé that you've managed such a team. There have been projects that were never meant to succeed. I've seen it with my own eyes. The last one was the whip that sent me back into academia. (My research area would be pretty hard to outsource, not that it's a lucrative job or anything.)
>The metered spaces would be turned into a no parking zone. That's LESS cars on the street.
If you make a no parking zone at one spot, other spots are impacted with more demand for parking. Meters don't discourage parking, and often do not even generate enough revenue to pay the total overhead of the meters; but what they do accomplish is turnover. Nobody is going to park all day at a two-hour meter, at least not twice.
Best downtown model I've seen is Portland. Strategically located ticket machines and a display ticket system that lets you park according to time limits, not location. In other words, you drive up to the coffee shop, get a parking permit, get your coffee, drive over to the bookstore, and that same permit is valid wherever you find a spot. Works great except during huge event weeks (when no system would really help).
Of course it is. If it weren't, a competitor could simply mark his price point slightly below the others' rebate point. If the system was legitimate, they could just as easily give you $30 off the price as a $30 rebate.
Until now, there's been some notion that the commanders have some idea which is which. It's pointless to put a military aircraft in the air *not* fully armed, except maybe for training.
We just told the enemy that B-52's are not routinely armed. That in order for a B-52 already in the air to respond, it would have to land and be armed, and take off again.
Doesn't anyone else recognize the potential for this information to be used as a weapon?
"First of all you have to wonder how it is that the media gets such a story and second of all how they are allowed to tell it."
1. Several military officers, during wartime, disclosed specific information about the armament and disposition of a particular aircraft. This is treason. The people responsible should have been shot before lunchtime yesterday.
2. Some reporter knows and is not disclosing the identities of these traitors. He should be shot as well.
"Given that, why would you ever take the test, drunk or not?"
The real problem is that most people tested are pretty much 4 sheets to the wind, not merely "drunk". But they ALL try the same legal tactics to try to avoid consequences.
"Also, having had a cop threaten to kill me for not letting him search without a warrant (long story), I'm not too impressed with the concept of putting blind faith in any particular officer."
You misunderstood me; sorry. If your defense relies on attacking the integrity or the ability of a police officer, you've lost.
Slashdot Mirror
>I have registered a lot of shareware over the past decade and more. In fact, I have ended up with a whole CD-R that I label 'registered
>shareware' that has folders with all the shareware installers and the cd keys, license files, etc. that are collected with them.
'
1. I've outlived more than a couple of developers, both in the sense that individuals died and that companies vanished. I may or may not ever use their software again, but that's my decision not theirs.
2. I've used software in emulation of 20+ year old hardware, and not just for games.
I will buy software that gives me a license key which I am responsible for keeping.
I will not buy software that's tied to some specific device (e.g., Synchrosoft or ILok dongle, don't even assume "USB" or current architecture), nor will I buy anything that has to "call home" (will you still be answering in 20 years? I'm not willing to take the chance that you'll answer *tomorrow*.)
In the work place, if you don't offer licensing that allows site-wide installation without putting a bookkeeping hardship on the IT manager, and without requiring an internet connection for every install or reinstall, they are going to buy your competitor's product.
Even Microsoft caves in to this pressure.
You don't want to make the copy protection so complex that the cracked versions end up being buggy. There's this gray area where your paying customer ends up using the cracked version because the legitimate version is impaired by the copy protection. This used to happen all the time, and was actually instituted as a policy for one product in a place where I worked (complete with opinions from the corporate attorneys in support of the idea -- turns out it wasn't illegal, at least not at the time.)
Another problem is that you have to consider the cracked version that WILL be out there (if your product is interesting enough to be noticed), will serve as a form of advertising. If the crack is too hard to do, the cracked version will be buggy as hell as a result, and the advertising you get from the cracked version being out there will harm your reputation.
Another thing to consider is the fact that, as the very first line of your sales pitch, you are saying "we don't trust you, the shitbag customer." That's what *I* hear when I find out I'm supposed to have a synchrosoft dongle or that I won't be allowed to try out the program on an isolated machine before putting it in production because activation is required and will disable the program if I put it on another host.
Another thing to consider is that software activation is really "de-activation." You are putting a system in place to disable the software, with a hard cryptographic scheme to keep it disabled. Why do you imagine your prospective customer wants that? No matter how hard you try, there's no way you can spin that as a benefit to them. It benefits the distributor, in theory, but only by presenting the idea that the customer is considered a hostile party, even a criminal, which cannot possibly help the marketing.
Here's the deal: If the software is used in the means of production of my creative work, I will not tolerate YOUR cryptographic control in that process unless I have all keys.
I can accept something like a license key, where I am responsible for keeping the key and keeping the installation media. If I lose one of those, and cannot use the software in the future (e.g., long after you are dead, perhaps even on emulated hardware), that was my responsibility.
However, I cannot use dongles, challenge/response, online or telephone or snail mail activation, or anything else that serves to disable the software.
This is particularly true of any music production software. If there's a mechanism to disable the software as some sort of license protection scheme, I can't use it. I can't use it, partly because of my position on copyright (putting your cryptographic controls in the path of my own creative work abridges MY copyright!), and I can't use it because I'm risk averse (I can't perform with a software instrument that has a USB dongle, I can't record with software that decides it needs to call home, and I can't really use anything that does not allow me, with no communication with anyone else required, to put together a spare host and re-install hardware on a moment's notice.)
Maybe I'm the only person in the world that wouldn't buy your software because of your copy protection scheme, and maybe I'm not.
But I urge you to consider whether you are putting your interests ahead of your customers' (e.g., elevating the need to protect your copyright to the level that it abridges theirs), and to walk a mile in your customers' shoes and consider how your position will be regarded by them.
My reaction to some copy protection schemes is to be fundamentally insulted, and to be entirely unable to enter into any kind of relationship because the company has asked me to surrender my rights and treated the whole thing as though it were reasonable. My position has nothing to do with the right to make copies of software, and everything to do with the right to use the software as the means of production to produce my own creative work and to reproduce it in the future.
Here's an idea: If you *must* use a dongle, make the dongle something that's (1) eminently useful, and (2) essential to the operation. Most dongles are just there to disable the software; that's their only function.
My suggestion is to just distribute a license key, and provide a trial version that works well enough that it's worthless to crack. You'll see keygens and cracks out there anyway, no matter what. Think of it as feedback metrics on the penetration of your product into the mindshare. If you make your copy protection scheme too good, the cracks will be buggy, and will serve as bad advertising, ruining your reputation.
>This is just stupid
Or does it suddenly elevate the stature of a functionary of the European Government to greater significance? This gives him something to bargain with. A position that he could be persuaded to back down from, for some consideration in return.
The EU Commissioner knows as well as anyone else, just how impossible it is to get agreement among all the member nations on issues of the slightest controversy.
But the slashdot crowd responds as though every player in any government has absolute authority to make a decree and that decree becomes law. Hint: Some of the largest economic players in the EU (i.e., not Italy) happen to have the culture of Free Speech indoctrinated into their societies and legal systems.
>How can we learn from our past if our past is blurred?
One thing we learn from the past is that it's always distorted. Is there anything really new about internet censorship?
Do Europeans consider free speech or free press important enough to kill, die, dissolve political alliances or revoke currency in order to protect them?
Freedom of speech is one of the very few things actually *worth* killing or dying to protect. But do Europeans feel that way? Or are they willing to surrender their rights?
>Why would one NEED to drive in Portland is the question I'm left with, after having visited there recently.
I can't imagine living in Oregon or anywhere in the Northwest and not having a car. Are you referring to public transportation (which is decent) or bicycling?
Yeah, it would be nice to live up on the hill within walking distance of OHSU. Got 800 grand I can borrow to buy the house?
"Programming, on the other hand, can be done by anybody with a Computer Science or related mathematical degree, usually a two year Associate's degree. India is graduating 50,000 people with this training EVERY YEAR."
I've seen enough of their work (and managed projects to *re-do* enough of their work) that I'm really not afraid of Indian outsourcing, at least not longterm. Project managers (and more importantly, Boards of Directors) aren't stupid or blind. They look at postmortems. The fad is old enough that its aggregate metrics are coming in.
One driver of the India outsourcing fad has been, simply, that it's essential to have on your management résumé that you've managed such a team. There have been projects that were never meant to succeed. I've seen it with my own eyes. The last one was the whip that sent me back into academia. (My research area would be pretty hard to outsource, not that it's a lucrative job or anything.)
>The metered spaces would be turned into a no parking zone. That's LESS cars on the street.
If you make a no parking zone at one spot, other spots are impacted with more demand for parking.
Meters don't discourage parking, and often do not even generate enough revenue to pay the total
overhead of the meters; but what they do accomplish is turnover. Nobody is going to park all day
at a two-hour meter, at least not twice.
Best downtown model I've seen is Portland. Strategically located ticket machines and a display
ticket system that lets you park according to time limits, not location. In other words, you
drive up to the coffee shop, get a parking permit, get your coffee, drive over to the bookstore,
and that same permit is valid wherever you find a spot. Works great except during huge event weeks
(when no system would really help).
> Ireland is several months voyage away from England? No? Then shut the fuck up.
Ah, so we are going to apply arbitrary distinctions, and use those to stifle discussion.
>Violent revolutions should only be reserved for "last resort" - there absolutely is no other choice.
So the colonies should have bit the bullet and waited for the next king to come around?
Some ads, when they are extremely funny or otherwise entertaining, are content, and get watched over and over.
Not sure it's correlated to purchasing though.
I lost count of the number of times I've heard someone whistle the Enzyte tune. But who'd buy Enzyte except as a gag gift or something?
"This is a completely untenable clause, because they don't tell you what things might piss them off, nor do they explain their relationship"
Then it's not enforceable so what's the problem?
My local pet store has a parrot that was born in 1914. He seems healthy and spry (and he bites).
obHomer: Mmmmmm.... peppered bird...
>What has the MPAA lost? Nothing. What has HBO lost? Nothing
They have lost *control* which they consider more valuable than your subscription fee.
>I think the entire industry is a scam
Of course it is. If it weren't, a competitor could simply mark his price point slightly below the others' rebate point.
If the system was legitimate, they could just as easily give you $30 off the price as a $30 rebate.
>That's been common knowledge for years.
Until now, there's been some notion that the commanders have some idea which is which.
It's pointless to put a military aircraft in the air *not* fully armed, except maybe for training.
We just told the enemy that B-52's are not routinely armed. That in order for a B-52 already in the air to respond, it would have to land and be armed, and take off again.
Doesn't anyone else recognize the potential for this information to be used as a weapon?
"First of all you have to wonder how it is that the media gets such a story and second of all how they are allowed to tell it."
1. Several military officers, during wartime, disclosed specific information about the armament and disposition of a particular aircraft. This is treason. The people responsible should have been shot before lunchtime yesterday.
2. Some reporter knows and is not disclosing the identities of these traitors. He should be shot as well.
Loose lips sink ships.
There's no exception about telling the press...
If you got an engineering degree without ever learning about risk assessment, you probably don't want to mention that to your boss.
"Given that, why would you ever take the test, drunk or not?"
The real problem is that most people tested are pretty much 4 sheets to the wind, not merely "drunk". But they ALL try the same legal tactics to try to avoid consequences.
"Also, having had a cop threaten to kill me for not letting him search without a warrant (long story), I'm not too impressed with the concept of putting blind faith in any particular officer."
You misunderstood me; sorry. If your defense relies on attacking the integrity or the ability of a police officer, you've lost.
>Look, if Californians want to state-subsidize cleaner automobiles, that's fine.
They are subsidizing manufacture, distribution, and marketing.
On the other hand, you can fly to San Diego, buy a car (good luck with the waiting list!), pay the taxes, and drive wherever you want.
>Ah, the smell of technology innovation being stifled by stupid legal action in the morning.
You can call it "stupid legal action" when you are willing to reimburse California for its subsidy of your vehicle.
Anyone insane enough to drive in DC should be locked up anyway, drunk or sober.