Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!world!boris
From: boris@world.std.com (Boris Levitin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Wanting to snub Emulators
Message-ID: <1990Oct28.021623.25248@world.std.com>
Date: 28 Oct 90 02:16:23 GMT
References: <1990Oct27.190254.8511@cpsc.ucalgary.ca>
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
Lines: 87

wieser@cs-sun-fsa.cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Bernhard Wieser) writes:
>Does anyone know what amax announces itself as?  I would like to have
>my software NOT run when it sees an emulator.
>When I write software, I write it for a specific platform.  Think about it,
>running software on a machine it wasn't designed for is a little like
>piracy.

No, it isn't.  Provided the user has paid for your software, he is entitled
to use it to its full functionality.  Your attempt to prevent your customers
from running a perfectly runnable program on a platform different from the one
you intended it for because you dislike the platform they're using or want them
to pay for another copy is at least immoral if not actually illegal.

What would you say if the maker of your car installed a timing device that
after a few years destroyed your engine or engaged some sort of permanent break
system to force you to buy another car?  After all, it's entitled to extract as
much revenue from you as it can... besides, it has intended its car to be used 
while it's still new and shiny, and doesn't want its emblem to be seen on a 
rusty groaner.  In fact, the much milder form of planned obsolescence practiced
by North American automakers up to the eighties is largely responsible for 
their tremendous loss of market share to Japan.  If that's the way you wish to
treat your customers, you don't deserve to have any.

>I have a couple notions to support this.
>1)Many software licenses state that the licensee is not allowed to
>transmit or translate the software in any form.  Isn't an emulator
>synonymous with the words 'translate' or 'copy'?

Translating what? Copying what? Your compiled program will work on the emulator
without being copied or translated.  The emulation software/hardware itself
is also not a copy or a translation of anything, or it would be illegal under
the copyright laws.

>2)Let's say I wrote a wonderful cad/cam package for various machines.
>I spent resources to support my software on multiple
>machines, using the strengths of each.  So Joe user, who might have
>both an Amiga and a Mac has no reason to support me and my
>efforts if they have an emulator.

Seems a tad arrogant when your software product is infinitely copiable to
begin with, and unless you want to hire the desperately-unemployed East German
Stasi secret police, you cannot enforce the license's prohibition on copying.
If you know a single person who would pay for a copy for each of his platforms
of your software, while he could obtain one or more of them illegally, you
hang out among much more altruistic people than I do.  Of course, you could
use hardware locks or copy-protection schemes, but your sales would plummet.

Even the software publishers who want only a reasonable payment for a well-
made product with unlimited support find it hard to prevent illegal copying
and convince users that they have an obligation to pay for what they use.
Your approach makes it all the more difficult for non-predatory developers
to get compensated for their efforts.

>3)When I write software, I do so on a machine which supports the task
> well.  If I don't write it for the Amiga, I may not want it running on the
>Amiga.

What if you are a vegeterian and do not wish your program to be used by meat-
eaters? Will you customers have to fill out questionnaires on their personal
lives and ethical beliefs next? Such an approach is understandable and even
right if we're talking about US arms sales, but you can't expect people to
provide End-User Certificates to the effect that your precious CAD program
will not be sullied by passage through the filthy registers of the Amiga.

>Software supports the machine it was written for.
>Why should I (the developer) support users who don't support me?

Why should the users support a developer who feels no responsibility towards
them?
 
>I dislike these religious battles.  Computers are tools; I think each brand
>has its uses/strengths.  But when I write software I support the machine and
>concepts behind it.

And yet you demand the right to treat certain hardware platforms the way the
Old Testament treats the Ishmaelites.

>Emulation can kill good ideas by stealing markets;
>it doesn't really create them, does it?

Yes, it does.  An Amiga user who has no Mac and wants to run your program
can (a) buy a Mac, (b) buy Amax, (c) give up on running your program.  When
you make your program Amax-resistant, you deprive the Amiga user of one way of
running your program, making it less likely that he'll buy it.

Emulation is freedom, a goal towards which the world seems to be moving
inexorably.  You obstruct its path at your peril.