Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:11226 comp.misc:1710
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!codas!karthur
From: karthur@codas.att.com (Kurt_R_Arthur)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Copy protection and the consumer
Message-ID: <1624@codas.att.com>
Date: 25 Jan 88 14:57:53 GMT
References: <577@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T, Altamonte Springs, FL
Lines: 23

In article <577@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
> 
> He wouldn't.  But consider the PC market.  IBM would *love* it if
> software bought to run on one of their machines wouldn't run on a
> clone!

When the first PCs came out from IBM, several software packages would check
for the letters "IBM" in the BIOS copyright, thus effectively making the soft-
ware run only on true-blue PCs....until some of the BIOS cloners came up with
"this is not an IBM pc" type messages and placed them in their BIOSes in the
same location.  The packages would see "IBM" and churn away happily.

I thought it was both ingenious and rather humorous.

One problem though, with a hardware vendor making software that runs only on
their machines (especially IBM and maybe DEC) is that anti-trust actions might
rear their ugly heads and force unbundling, or divestiture or worse.  I don't
purport to know what goes on in the heads of the trust-busters, but it seems
to me that a manufacturer might be taking a chance.


Kurt Arthur
Software Services of Florida, Inc.