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From: kurt@fluke.UUCP (Kurt Guntheroth)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Another view on software protection
Message-ID: <913@vax2.fluke.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Aug-85 19:54:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: vax2.913
Posted: Mon Aug 26 19:54:49 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Aug-85 20:15:47 EDT
References: <890@vax2.fluke.UUCP> <199@ittral.UUCP>
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 23

Re: legality of bundling with hardware.

It is indeed illegal to refuse to sell software w/o the hardware, but that
does not deter people from doing it.  If you are in a niche market, you can
build hardware that is expensive for another company to duplicate.  Then you
sell software to go with the hardware.  You will (of course) sell software
to anyone who wants it, but what are they going to do with it if they can't
run it.  They havn't got the resources to duplicate your hardware and there
are no other vendors.  Also, maybe part of your hardware is patented, thus
rendering it even more difficult for another company to duplicate.

Variations on this scheme have routinely been used by "turnkey system"
vendors for years.  The hardware is unique and only supported by one (small)
vendor.  The vendor has a de-facto monopoly once you've bought the
equipment.  If the vendor is IBM, the volume is big enough for somebody
(like Amdahl) to duplicate the expensive hardware.  If the vendor is small,
he gets away with it because he doesn't own a sufficiently large segment of
the "market" (where market means all computers or all business machines or
something like that).
-- 
Kurt Guntheroth
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
{uw-beaver,decvax!microsof,ucbvax!lbl-csam,allegra,ssc-vax}!fluke!kurt