Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekgen!tekigm2!phils From: phils@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM (Philip E Staub) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: WB 1.3.2 Keywords: legit? Message-ID: <6068@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM> Date: 6 Sep 89 17:35:33 GMT References: <14203@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> <7825@cbmvax.UUCP> Reply-To: phils@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM (Philip E Staub) Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Vancouver, WA. Lines: 90 In article <7825@cbmvax.UUCP> andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel) writes: >The WB1.3.2.zoo is an official Commodore release. It is available >electronically through BIX, GEnie, Compuserve, and Plink. > >The reason we are limiting distribution to those national boards >is so > a) when you get something marked WB1.3.2.zoo you can be fairly > sure its the real thing, with no additions, or changes. > (like a virus, or ...) > b) that if you got the original, you will be able to get > any updates > c) that you have been informed of the requirements of our > legal department for electronic distribution. > (including being uploaded/(published) by a Commodore person) > >This is best accomplished to limiting distribution to those national >BBS systems. > > > andy >-- >andy finkel {uunet|rutgers|amiga}!cbmvax!andy >Commodore-Amiga, Inc. FLAME ON!!! How do you expect loyal readers of this newsgroup to take this elitist crap? I have explicitly avoided these services(?) for financial and other reasons, now you tell me that the only way I can legally get this upgrade is to subscribe. BULL S**T. I can easily refute all three of the above arguments: a) Don't you know how to determine byte counts and checksums? b) If you got it on usenet, the same would apply. You say you lost your net access and therefore can't get updates? How about if you don't pay your Compu$erve bill? c) I want to know if Commodore really believes that this joke of a copyright is any more valid or enforcable when posted on one of these dollar drains than it is when posted here (or any other BBS). If so, I have lost a little more of what little was left of my estimation of the competency of CBMs management. And as for your previous "explanation" of the implication "no nukes" clause, I don't buy that either. If it applies for international use, it applies to domestic use as well. Come on CBM, grow up. This is just plain childish. I have no more wish for nuclear holocaust than anybody else. But this is the wrong place to make this kind of political statement. If this clause is to be included in all future CBM software releases, you might as well kiss any hope of large-scale government acceptance of CBM products good bye. You can't hide behind the argument that you don't need the government and/or military's business since they won't agree to the "no nukes" clause, either. You can't hope to stay in business if you insist upon chiseling away major pieces of your potential user base with idealistic dogma. You say you'd rather go out of business than violate your moral stance on nuclear arms? If so, you may have just sealed your fate. See you in the unemployment line. (Oops, there's that Government again.) FLAME down to slow boil. I'm sure the intent of all this was to circumvent the delay inherent in the normal distribution channels for new software releases. But there are better ways of doing this. Consider Marcus Wandel's approach to commenting a disassembly of Exec without violating copyright restrictions on distribution of CBM software. How about a freely redistributable program which patches or otherwise modifies a duplicate of the user's distribution Workbench 1.3 disk to perform the upgrades. This would be useless unless the user had 1.3 to begin with. (If s/he were going to bootleg 1.3, that's another problem.) True, it would require more effort to generate this type of program than distributing the executables, but you would not have generated nearly the amount of ill will that you seem to have invoked. I had more I wanted to say, but I'm so mad right now I can't remember what it was. 8-( Phil Disclaimer - This is not intended as a personal attack on Andy Finkel. I recognize that Andy has no recourse but to implement company policy. Therefore, consider these attacks (however ineffective they may be) to be directed to CBM and it's legal department. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Staub, phils@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM Definition: BUG: A feature (present or absent) which is (at best) inconvenient.