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From: dave@ecrcvax.UUCP (Dave Morton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ 2.0 pricing *** CORRECTIONS ***
Message-ID: <744@ecrcvax.UUCP>
Date: 5 Jul 89 13:56:51 GMT
References: <1989Jun30.074346.15350@lth.se> <264@pink.ACA.MCC.COM>
Reply-To: dave@ecrcvax.UUCP (Dave Morton)
Organization: ECRC, Munich 81, West Germany
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In article <264@pink.ACA.MCC.COM> rfg@pink.aca.mcc.com.UUCP (Ron Guilmette) writes:
>one thing
>we can agree on is that these kinds of silly licensing restrictions
>result in nothing other than a big waste of resources.  Basically,
>since it is next to impossible to enforce such things, all that
>happens is that network System Administrators (just the more
>paranoid ones) waste a lot of time and effort running around
>creating disk partitions just to hold system X or system Y, and
>making sure that only certain subsets of workstations can mount
>the filesystems associated with those partitions.  They also waste
>a lot of time telling users not to make copies of files (which they
>may be responsible for modifying) in their own home directories.
>The really paranoid ones waste even more time checking that their
>users have not made any such illicit copies.
Ah, nobody in their right mind bothers doing all this really. Still
the legal obligation exists. How many sys admins out there can
afford the time to carry through these silly measures. I'll
take my chances with the main memory police:-  Also, considering
the price of the upgrade one might as well consider just not using
C++ and just delete the old 1.2. At this prices who's gonna use
it anyway ?
>
>From the vendors point of view, site licensing is just about the only
>thing that can be enforced.  From the purchaser's point of view, it
>is the only way a big corporation can hope to be assured that they
>will not be sued by the vendor because some bozo accidently made an
>illicit copy of 1 tiny file into his home directory.  Additionally,
>site licensing can prevent a purchaser's SysAdmin's from doing a
>Jeykel & Hide and turning into little dictators and unofficial
>policemen working for the vendor and against the purchaser.
Agreed 100%. Pity the lawyers who wrote all this junk into the
contracts dont know or understand the difficulties you
outlined. I think most admins hate the idea of playing secret
policeman especially for a vendor, the only assurance a vendor
has that people at a site dont steal software is the work
contract between the site and the user. If AT&T were honest
with themselves they'd admit that lots of sites have multiple
copies on different machines. As you say, it's almost impossible
to restrict or discover that joe user has a header file stashed
somewhere on his w/s. Mabye someone from AT&T could provide their
laywers with a "Noddy Guide to Sys. Admin at Large Sites".

Dave Morton, Sys Manager,
European Computer Industry Research Centre      Tel. + (49) 89-92699-139
Arabellastr 17, 8000 Muenchen 81. West Germany.
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dave@ecrcvax.uucp