Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uunet!brunix!rca
From: rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Copy Protection Mechanisms
Message-ID: <60700@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jan 91 15:50:15 GMT
References: <2983@pensoft.UUCP>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 25


If you feel compelled to use a sort of copy protection which I think
is not necessary unless you sell a program that the user uses probably
only once and thus can easily forget about paying, then at least do
not bind the program to the host-id. This is BS. Just think each time
you upgrade you have to replace all your software.
Any company most probably will buy it's software (internal and
external revision, corporate image, etc.) The one who uses software
professionaly will pay, even if it's just because of the support and
upgrades. 
The few hackers that collect software are no big danger, I would
guess. After all they would never buy the software in the first place,
the few times they use it is just for thefun of it.
Professional software pirates can hack most protections anyway, but
for them is the NeXT market uninteresting at least with it's current
size.
The best protection is a low price and good support.

Just my .02$

Ronald
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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man."   G.B. Shaw   |  rca@cs.brown.edu or antony@browncog.bitnet