Frankly I don't agree with "protection" that causes problems to the legitimate user.
In all my years of writng bespoke software I ALWAYS placed a copy of the source on the CEO machine and told them (for no extra) . If I got run over by a bus then the company wouldn't be at a loss - there are many Foxpro/Delphi programmers around. The system that I have written with Livecode - A POS if you must know I have put in the simplest of protections. Each copy has the name and address of the company in a few columns in table. I have a separate program to setup the name and address - I save ALL but the name in the clear. The Name is saved with 128/256 bit encryption. When the program starts it reads the fields and decrypts the name, and if it is not a valid name the system can do what it wants. Personally it says Unregistered copy and my Phone number on the Customer display and on receipts and takings. The only reason I put this in was that one of my customers said a cash Register person was asking questions. I have split up the test in to two different areas because I know from experience how you crack programs (it was better than playing games on an Apple ][ - well except for Choplifter, Threshhold and Pacman). You just find the code where the test is and jump over it - except that in this case the name will not be correct so they will have to patch the byte code as well - and that is protected as well. There is another sneaky way if and when I can be bothered. Allow them to enter name and address within the program save it. When the program starts up let them think it's ok - but check every time and count down for a month or 2 - Then tell them they are rumbled not overtly but with a "Program Error " that needs your support. There is a lot of fun using this very simple method that can still take ages to crack. In fact with Livecodes send <zzzz> to command you can split up the checks and make it random as well. Frankly all protections can be removed I gave up one night when after going through 3 levels of protection from the boot sector to other sectors then a routine in memory that said for "$149.95 you can go to sleep tonight" - It was 3 in the morning and I went to bed after having a good laugh - never did any more cracking after that. Oh and that was a protected LISA assembler disk I had purchased so it wasn't about saving money. - I had already made a backup using a bit copier but I wanted a non copyprotected version and some "fun" deprotecting it. The people who copy your stuff are your free advertising. Case in point I was given a Clipper Summer 85 Disk by a programmer friend - I hated DBase it had no validation and was too Basic. I tried Clipper for a Week. I then Purchased Same for £695.00 in 1985 - when that was lot of money - they got a sale because there was absolutely no protection. Finally to round this off. In the early days Microsoft managed to dethrone lotus by just having a license number instead of a protected disk so all the students and companies could copy word/excel. Once you learn something and go into the workplace you take your skills with you. After a year or two they allowed you to become "legal" for an upgrade price of under £100 I think it was - when Lotus was still selling 123 for Nearly £500 and all the upgrade did was check that word/excel/office was installed on your machine - didn't matter if it was legit or not. Then Microsoft slowly increased prices ...... On 2 August 2017 at 22:24, Richmond Mathewson via use-livecode < use-livecode@lists.runrev.com> wrote: > > > On 8/3/17 12:03 am, Richard Gaskin via use-livecode wrote: > >> Richmond Mathewson wrote: >> >> > No, I don't think we have to respect Apple's policy at all. >> >> A similar view might ask whether the DevaWriter license terms need to be >> respected, or LiveCode Ltd.'s, or Stephen King's, or the protections >> afforded any creator of an original work. >> >> <snip> > > LOL. > > I have just changed my Devawriter licensing system so that each > instantiation of it that I sell is tied to the MAC address of > an individual computer. Therefore there is nothing to respect, a chain is > a chain, and if someone manages to spoof Mac Addresses > on a large scale to use my program the fact that they would go to that > trouble proves it's a program worth having! > > I have made my "licensing" system as hard as I can: I'm sure it can be > broken: whether it is worth going to that bother remains to be seen; > after all you can have a site licence for 10 machines at $200. > > If I really wanted to make "my fortune" programming computers I wouldn't > be tinkering around in our spare bedroom at 55 anyway . . . > > The reason I have changed it is because I know of someone who purchased my > Devawriter 3 years ago and now has copies all over the place: > my bad, I should have taken a bit more trouble: at least some people are > finally getting their heads around "Sanskrit As it Should Be": > > http://andregarzia.on-rev.com/richmond/home.html > > Apple's policy is "just" Apple trying something on. A EULA is NOT a > legally binding agreement: if you choose to abide by it you > can feel "awfully" moral, much in the same sort of way I haven't fathered > 27 children with 27 mothers simultaneously (which, oddly > enough, is not illegal) makes me fell that I'm slightly more moral in some > respects. > > I bought a 10 year-old Intel iMac about 8 months ago. I had the system > install disks from a Mac laptop of my wife's that went bang about 3 years > ago. > Now I was probably breaking some sort of agreement by using those disks to > get my iMac going - possibly not "meant" to install on another Mac other > than the one they were bought with. Morally, as the one the disks came > with a dead computer I could see nothing wrong with using them to get > another, similar computer running; especially as I could find no way to > purchase Mac OS Lion disks from Apple. > > LiveCode give away the Open Source version of their product. . . > > Stephen King . . . well, if you really have to read his books you can > borrow them from the library . . . I read 3 of them in about 1984. > > Love, Richmond. > > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@lists.runrev.com > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your > subscription preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode > _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
