Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!cwjcc!neoucom!wtm
From: wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: prolock (A good reason to do co
Summary: Ted Bundy
Message-ID: <1479@neoucom.UUCP>
Date: 25 Jan 89 01:19:42 GMT
References: <484@octopus.UUCP> <45900194@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Lines: 36


Marketing weenies that decide that their companies' software
products need the likes of prolock deserve the sam fate as Ted
Bundy.  Well maybe that is a little strong; no maybe not.

One time prolock trashed the FAT of a hard disk that I was
installing a program on.  Needless to say I was miffed when I
reformatted, and it trahsed the FAT again.  Another funny example
was Graph In The Box 1.1 which used "super prolock 300".  The
distribution disk could be copied freely with diskcopy, but refused
to install on a hard disk. New England Software was very upset when
I called then and explained the error.  GB2.0 was susbequently
released without copy protection.

If your compnay insists on copy protection, you deserve what you
get: irate users and lost sales.  You'll lose other sales because
users will pirate your software because they feel that it is
fair to punish you for copy-proofing your software. (Not that it is
fair, mind you.)

Dongles really aren't much better than key disks.  I've run into
dongle compatibility problems on some 'turbo' AT clones and the
like.  Don't believe what Rainbow Technologies says in their ads.
It isn't too hard to patch around dongle checking code in most
programs anyway.  It's usually easier to buy a non-dongleized
program from a different vendor anyway.  Using a specialized piece
of hardware is a little more fair than using a dongle for the sake
of the dongle alone.

You're better off selling an expenxive product, but providing
technical support of a quality that justifies the price.  Users
will then want to buy your product so that they can be registered
users.  Word Perfect is a case in point.  Of course, providing
decent support is work and expense for you.

--Bill