Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!decwrl!autodesk!robertj
From: robertj@Autodesk.COM (Young Rob Jellinghaus)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: RE Feedback on Computer Crime - Apology
Message-ID: <65@autodesk.UUCP>
Date: 27 Aug 90 17:51:13 GMT
References: <4c517e56.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> <9008210016.AA14566@world.std.com>
Organization: Autodesk, Inc., Sausalito, CA
Lines: 50

In article <9008210016.AA14566@world.std.com> bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:
>Note: I am not arguing the ethicality of copying software, I am merely
>wondering if the software industry has created these problems for
>itself by badly managing their entire industry.
...
>Copying a $500 software package by buying $5 worth of floppies seems
>to be a situation akin to storing diamonds in open containers in front
>of your house and then demanding the police stand guard lest some
>crook steal them. Certainly the person who stole them committed a
>crime, but if the society responds that perhaps you should store your
>diamonds in some better way is also valid, being as you are obviously
>fully aware of the problem you are creating. And if you cannot come up
>with the solution or find it too expensive (but safes cost money!),
>well, perhaps you are in the wrong business.

Autodesk got bitten badly by the hypocrisy and inherent contradictions of
the software market when it attempted to ship a hardware lock with Release
9 (I think) AutoCAD.  The lock was designed well, it worked on all but a
fraction of machines, and it in general provided a solution to the "open
diamond containers" problem.  It _worked_.

Autodesk removed the lock after suffering a veritable shitstorm of
negative publicity, bad dealer relations, and general vilification from
the trade press.  There was no well-thought-out rationale for the attacks;
no one justified the aversion to the hardware lock.  Indeed, everyone
still decried piracy.  But Autodesk was portrayed as a company hostile
to users, authoritarian, and generally bad, simply because they were
attempting to do the reasonable thing with regard to the problem of piracy!
One CPU, one copy of AutoCAD... it doesn't sound so bad, does it? 

If it _does_ sound bad, can you still claim to be against piracy?

(My information on this comes from _The_Autodesk_File_, by John Walker,
New Riders Publishing, 1989.  I don't have the whole story.)

>Perhaps there is no solution. So, therefore, we should subsidize the
>profitability of this industry with billions of tax dollars?
>
>I am not so certain, perhaps you are.

No, I'm not certain.  I wish there were a way to rewrite the implicit
rules of the industry to make hardware locks acceptable... personally,
I think CPU IDs are the way to go.  Most Unix server software is installed
on one particular CPU, and thereafter can't be run on any other.  It's
a hardware lock, but the user doesn't have to know about it, and it's
networkable... hopefully _that_ is the way to go.

>        -Barry Shein