Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 11:38:13 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au (Michael Smith) Cc: terry@lambert.org, green@fang.cs.sunyit.edu, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: T-shirts for donations ;)...Maybe????? Message-ID: <199606131838.LAA08746@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <199606130152.LAA21945@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> from "Michael Smith" at Jun 13, 96 11:22:27 am
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> > Actually, thinking more on this, I'd like to see a SunSoft-like > > key-based commercial software distribution CDROM. Install the > > demo version, call up with a credit card to get a key to turn > > it intothe real thing. I've played with a bunch of these for > > SPARC SunOS and Solaris. > > I (and probably anyone else not in the continental US) would _NOT_ like > this. Can you guess why? No, actually. > Now a PGP-based mailback system that kept records so that if your system > and the key got hosed you could re-request the key _without_being_billed_ > would have some merit. Now I can guess: you don't trust the people selling the keys to keep track of the keys you own. This is an administrative problem on the order of maintaining a registered user database -- something nearly every software vendor does anyway (and which all successful ones who wish repeat sales do). Keeping track of the fax copies of the key sent to you is on the order of keeping track of the CDROM you installed from (which you would also need to be able to reinstall). If you lost the CDROM, having the key available via email wouldn't help, would it? And if they put the binaries on the net (your next obvious argument), then they would need to license the patent that covers net distribution of binaries using license keys. Nolo contendre. The magic thing here, of course, is that the license service software would need to come with the system. It's logical that the people selling the server software would let anyone distribute it, since the place they get paid for is the code that links to the application. Obviously, if a system came with ABC Software's license server, if I were doing a port to that system, I'd use ABC Software's client in my product. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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