Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu!zardoz.club.cc.cmu.edu!ddj
From: ddj@zardoz.club.cc.cmu.edu (Doug DeJulio)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: CD-ROM Drives
Message-ID: <1991Jun22.143320.1752@zardoz.club.cc.cmu.edu>
Date: 22 Jun 91 14:33:20 GMT
References: <1991Jun21.002247.15086@leland.Stanford.EDU> <1769@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <1991Jun21.133715.29072@umbc3.umbc.edu>
Organization: The Castle Anthrax
Lines: 30

In article <1991Jun21.133715.29072@umbc3.umbc.edu> brian@umbc4.umbc.edu (Brian Cuthie) writes:
>>+ unattractive licensing terms have become the norm with CD-ROM
>>  products
>
>WHAT !?

What do you mean "WHAT"?  This is true.  I work in a university
library, in a library automation project.  We've got lots of data on
CDs.  Right now, people go up to a PC with a CD ROM drive, toss in the
CD they want to read, and do their data lookups.  I wanted to set up a
couple of server machines with CD-ROM drives and network filesystem
server software, so multiple people could do searches at the same time
from multiple hardware platforms.  We can't do it for *licensing*
reasons.  Only *one* person is allowed to be searching a CD-ROM around
here at a time.  Each additional user would require a much more
expensive license for each CD.  No, really.

At home, I have a NeXTstation with lots of RAM and hard drive space,
and about 30 users who connect in over the internet to use the
machine.  I'd love to have a CD-ROM drive.  This insane licensing --
how do you handle this on a workstation?  On a PC, just leave the
whole system in stone-age technology, so only the person at the
console can access any of the resources.  But what about an
interpersonal computer, being shared by 30 people routinely?  A
one-user license would be the wrong thing to get, but an unlimited
access license would be *so* expensive that it's impossible to obtain
for an individual user.
-- 
Doug DeJulio
ddj@zardoz.club.cc.cmu.edu