Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!agate!shelby!neon!ibis.Stanford.EDU!espie
From: espie@ibis.Stanford.EDU (Marc Espie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: A European point of view (LONG)
Keywords: Copy protection, games, breaking the OS
Message-ID: <1990Dec6.201824.13502@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 6 Dec 90 20:18:24 GMT
References: <1990Dec6.185453.5684@cbnewsk.att.com>
Sender: news@Neon.Stanford.EDU (USENET News System)
Organization: LIENS, ENS, 45 rue d'Ulm, Paris (France)
Lines: 118

There has been an ongoing ``discussion'' about bad programming,
copy-protection and other subjects. I don't specifically want to argue
on these things, this is the reason why I don't post this as a
follow-up.

I'm currently in the US, but I've been living in France till this
year.  There are some things I had to live with which you probably
aren't aware of.

First of all, european spirit about piracy is far away from US spirit.
As far as I know, this is not an unsignifiant portion of french amiga
users who are pirates, but many of them. There are many reasons for
that. This is partly a cultural question. People may realise it is
thievery, but they don't care... From my point of view, the
north-american culture has some odd quirks too :-) This gives a
justification for copy-protection. Most of the games get cracked sooner
or later (there are some bad-luck cases where a hacked-up version
appears before the release), but it usually takes a month or so.  This
is this month which justify the protections, the biggest part of a
``typical game'' sales-figure occurs during this month.( I don't like
copy-protections either. From my point of view, this is a bad
justification)

Second point, some people are growing up and being responsible... I
have seen some pirate versions which say: if you like this game, go and
buy it.  and some people do ! I, personnally, had a pirate version of
Populous for two days. I just went out and bought it.  The problem with
this kind of attitude is that software companies still expect people to
be stupid. Why would you want to buy a program which is BUGGY, doesn't
recognize your memory expansion, and costs lots of money ?  There is a
natural sort which is beginning to happen. People are getting hacked-up
programs, test them, and buy what they need and, most importantly, what
*works*. I am not sure of the extent of this, I just hope I'm not doing
wishful thinking. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not a pirate. I use my amiga mostly
for programming. I've bought Lattice C, 4 or 5 games, and use hundreds
of PD programs. Most of the games I bought, like populous or indiana
jones, are good games for the price I paid for them. I also happen to
like 3d-demos... I stumble quite often upon pirates material, I can't
help it.)

Third point, there is a very basic reason for the way people program
the amiga here in Europe. they don't get the technical documentation.
I've seen the RKMs cost something like $30 each around here ?  Well,
DOUBLE that price for France (importation material). That begins to
become expensive, doesn't it ? Add to that the fact that *many* people
don't read english (impossible ? No, quite reasonnable... how many of
you read chinese ? or indian ? so few ? Hey, you're cutting yourself
from half the people in the WORLD !). and there is NO french
translation of the ROM Kernel. Add to it that many people don't even
know there is a RKM...  There are maybe three or four shops in France
where you can buy it (France is a small country ? ok, but there
60,000,000 persons here.  Crowded, according to US standards !).  On
the other hands, you find bad french books... which do mostly dirty
things, like busy-waiting and accessing the hardware directly.
Furthermore, the amiga didn't really catch-up in France. About 3/4 of
these books are translated from the german. Queer...

This is not quite all. The same price problem occurs for american
software.  A few knowledgeable users know how to mail-order from the US
directly.  The rest has to deal with incompetent dealers, which (won't
say ``who'' here) propose them outdated versions for an exhorbitant
price. So this is no great wonder most would-be programmers were using
the Kseka assembler (pile of crap) some two years ago, and nobody knows
anything about PD C-Compilers...  So don't wonder so many europeans
demos don't even work on an NTSC Amiga...  (I don't want to give them
an excuse. Just some piece of information.)

The situation might get better as people start upgrading to 2000 and
3000.  but... French prices are about the DOUBLE of american prices.
Example ?  a basic 3000 costs 30000f, which is something like MORE than
$5000. And there is NO educational price to speak of (as far as I
know... I left France three months ago).

I don't want just to be a critic. I think some things might be done.
First of all, Commodore might get a contract to get the RKM translated
in French/German, other languages (speaking for my own friends, here).
This might be expensive, especially since they can't expect to get any
$$ here. But... think of the reputation. Many programs made in Europe
are broken, won't ever be able to run with AmigaDOS2.0. This might be
slow-mo, but *if* people know why they're doing wrong, they might get
careful.

There is a second, most unexpensive thing to do. Add something like 10
pages to every documentation distributed with every amiga, explaining
what you can do if you want to be OS-friendly, and what you can't...
(like the first pages of the RKM). SAY EVERYTHING. Be technical when
necessary, tell people that you ARE technical. The average user won't
read it. The would-be programmer will remember it is here, and won't
break the OS for the sake of it.  Also, if you do it carefully, you
might be able to change the point of view of Joe User. Make
badly-written programs look BAD. Make Joe realize that recognizing a
second-floppy, or a memory-expansion is EASY, and there is NO EXCUSE
for not doing it. Of course, WRITE THESE PAGES IN FRENCH, GERMAN, or
any other local language (russian, chinese :-)).  Once again, this
doesn't give you any money, but this has a big potential effect.

Now for the answers: please don't flame me. I'm trying to be
reasonnable here, and I will answer to reasonnable questions, comments
(cookies, honey, ...:-) ).  This is a partial picture of the situation,
which is obviously not complete and/or accurate. Feel free to add, but
do not save net bandwidth. I will post a summary/followup of
interesting things I will receive. (I most certainly have made some
grammar mistakes...  Don't post rectifications, email them to me !)

If other people from other countries have further comments (what is the
situation in your home country ?), that surely can be interesting.

If you think my ``solution'' is not a good one, propose another one...
This is just a starting point, I am none too good at finding solutions.

    Marc

--
espie@flamingo.stanford.edu, espie@dmi.ens.fr

Progris riport 1:
thee miga masheen is not sellin as well as
forcasted.