D5 Activation: The Final Word?

Folks,

We have decided, after much discussion and (on my part at least) some
regret, to revert to the original licensing scheme and distribution of full
keys by e-mail. Although I believe an activation scheme should have been
better accepted and tolerated by our users, the reaction of several people
here has resulted in sufficient "bluster" to make us reconsider. We've
become aware that, since the release of beta3, nearly all of the discussion
has been around the licensing/activation issue and very little note has been
taken of any of the new stuff (such as the class hierarchy pane in the SB
and the 200+ bug fixes and enhancements). We really can't afford this to
happen for the real world D5 release so out goes activation. We will,
however, be adding some support in the unlock process to spot "illegal" keys
(and probably offer them a 30 day trial) so the reversion to the old scheme
will probably delay the release by about a week.

(As an aside we are also likely to revert to the distribution of the
installer as a .MSI file with optional links to update the MS Installer on
the user's machine. Again, this seems like a retrograde step to me, since
nearly all current machines will required the version 2 installer upgrade
and MSI files have in the past caused problems with downloads in some
browsers but, hey, it worked for most people so why change it and risk any
negative endorsement?).

While most of you are in the wings shouting "hoorah" about all this, I'd
still like to set out my thoughts as to why I believe some sort of improved
protection scheme would have been preferable and "beneficial" although
possibly inconvenient to us all. If you want to opt out before the diatribe
begins, then now is the time to do so....

----

The internet as we consumers know it is less than 10 years old. It is a new
medium and during the last decade while it has been finding its feet it has
been allowed a range of freedoms which I don't believe can be allowed to
continue ad infinitum. These freedoms, in no particular order, include: SPAM
e-mail, annonymity from libel, copyright piracy, credit card fraud, viruses,
porn etc. People so far put up with this stuff because the net is novel and
useful. However, all of these threats seem to be increasing and my belief is
that gradually measures will have to be put in place to restrict the
perpetration of these varying "crimes".

Take copyright piracy and credit card fraud which is what we are dealing
with with Dolphin.  We know that several fraudulent purchases have been made
and that at least one was used to publish a serial number on a hack website.
We also suspect that we suffer from a fair number of unwarranted downloads
that are probably piracy (BTW, I don't believe we suffered 1000 pirate
downloads, just a significant number). Now if we were to prevent this fraud
(if we could) I still don't believe that all of these would turn to sales. I
do think that *some* would however. (I have a couple of supposedly
intelligent friends who got hooked up on the MP3 Napster deal.. now that
this has gone, or at least got much more inconvenient, they've gone back to
buying CDs).

But gaining additional Dolphin sales was not the real point of the
activation scheme for me. I do think, though, that it is important to at
least try and put the brakes on the culture of fraud. It is bad for our
youth, and bad for all of us. To be honest I don't think the Open Source
movement has helped at all in this respect since it *appears* to devalue
software and interlectual property but that is a rant for (yet) another
thread. In the end, I think it is our (Object Arts') responsibility to
protect our products so that they don't easily enter the "if I can get it
for free why not" culture.

----

The above is why I would have liked to put a mechanism into D5 that at least
made it harder to distribute illegally. It was not our intention to restrict
the license to gain more sales or to make it overly hard for legitimate
users to get started with the software. I think that, in future, activation
schemes or some other fraud preventation mechanisms will become more
prevalent but, from the responses seen in this newsgroup, I don't think the
time is yet right for small companies like OA to be taking the first steps.


Best Regards,

Andy Bower
Object Arts Ltd.
http://www.object-arts.com
---
Are you trying too hard?
http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm
---

"Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]...

Andy & Blair,

many thanks for this, and if there is Huraah, then it is to your ability
response to your customers needs even if you do not agree with them. It is
great proof of your devotion and level of support.

Thanks once again,

Davorin Rusevljan

> software and interlectual property but that is a rant for (yet) another

That should, of course, be *intellectual* (how I hate that spelling
mistake).

Best Regards,

Andy Bower
Object Arts Ltd.
http://www.object-arts.com
---
Are you trying too hard?
http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm
---

Andy Bower wrote:
> The internet as we consumers know it is less than 10 years old. It is a new
> medium and during the last decade while it has been finding its feet it has
> been allowed a range of freedoms which I don't believe can be allowed to
> continue ad infinitum. These freedoms, in no particular order, include: SPAM
> e-mail, annonymity from libel, copyright piracy, credit card fraud, viruses,
> porn etc. People so far put up with this stuff because the net is novel and
> useful. However, all of these threats seem to be increasing and my belief is
> that gradually measures will have to be put in place to restrict the
> perpetration of these varying "crimes".

Against my better net-judgement I must respond :(

One couple's porn is another couple's erotica. I think your argument,
and the cause (which I *strongly* support), is weakened when you make
such morally relativistic assertions. Remember that in some Muslim
cultures, even the sight of a woman's face in public is morally
offensive, and surely you wouldn't have us ban all pictures of woman on
the net? Andy Partridge (XTC) has a great saying - "Do what you will,
but harm no-one".

Hi Andy,

> We have decided, after much discussion and (on my part at least) some
> regret, to revert to the original licensing scheme and distribution of
full
> keys by e-mail. Although I believe an activation scheme should have been
> better accepted and tolerated by our users, the reaction of several people
> here has resulted in sufficient "bluster" to make us reconsider. We've
> become aware that, since the release of beta3, nearly all of the
discussion
> has been around the licensing/activation issue and very little note has
been
> taken of any of the new stuff (such as the class hierarchy pane in the SB
> and the 200+ bug fixes and enhancements). We really can't afford this to
> happen for the real world D5 release so out goes activation. We will,
> however, be adding some support in the unlock process to spot "illegal"
keys
> (and probably offer them a 30 day trial) so the reversion to the old
scheme
> will probably delay the release by about a week.
>

Like Davorin said, a Hurray for you to listen to your customers.

Re the testing of Beta3, I would have liked to have a better look, but the
key you sent me prevented me from doing any serious testing (aka using it).
I agree that the 'read-only' version should be beta-tested as well,
therefore don't take this as a complaint, but my addiction to the
refactoring stuff needs to be fed :-) therefore would it be possible to send
me a 'full' key?

Thanks,

Ted

Ted,

> Re the testing of Beta3, I would have liked to have a better look, but the
> key you sent me prevented me from doing any serious testing (aka using
it).
> I agree that the 'read-only' version should be beta-tested as well,
> therefore don't take this as a complaint, but my addiction to the
> refactoring stuff needs to be fed :-) therefore would it be possible to
send
> me a 'full' key?

I'm at a complete loss to know what you mean here. What was/is the
"read-only" version?

Best Regards,

Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
http://www.object-arts.com
---
Are you trying too hard?
http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm
---

Hi Andy,

"Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]...
> Ted,
>
> > Re the testing of Beta3, I would have liked to have a better look, but
the
The unlock key for beta3 on my machine doesn't show the source code, hence I
called it the read-only version as I can't get access to any of the source.
I agree read-only isn't the right term as I can't read it either ;-)

Anyway, the unlock key gave me the temporary licence that doesn't show the
source code and because of error #796 I really can't do much with beta3.

Cheers,

Ted

Thanks Andy.

I hope and believe that this is best decision for OA for the time being.

    -- chris

Andy, Ted,

> > I'm at a complete loss to know what you mean here. What was/is the
> > "read-only" version?
> >
>
> The unlock key for beta3 on my machine doesn't show the source code, hence
I
> called it the read-only version as I can't get access to any of the
source.
> I agree read-only isn't the right term as I can't read it either ;-)

I was stopped by this today, and then thought of something: let it install
the Professional.* files where it wants to and then copy/rename them later.
It worked, and I the vaguely recall doing that on the first day too.
Implicit (it is, right???<g>) in that is using "hard-coded" shortcuts to
start the new image (on my "if you don't, you should" list).

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

Bill, Ted,

> > > I'm at a complete loss to know what you mean here. What was/is the
> > > "read-only" version?
> >
> > The unlock key for beta3 on my machine doesn't show the source code,
hence
> I
> > called it the read-only version as I can't get access to any of the
> source.
> > I agree read-only isn't the right term as I can't read it either ;-)
>
> I was stopped by this today, and then thought of something: let it install
> the Professional.* files where it wants to and then copy/rename them
later.
> It worked, and I the vaguely recall doing that on the first day too.
> Implicit (it is, right???<g>) in that is using "hard-coded" shortcuts to
> start the new image (on my "if you don't, you should" list).

Are you saying that you both chose the custom install option and installed
the IMG, SML and CHG files to a location that was not the default? If so,
that is not legal, and we'll have to stop the installer from allowing the
change of location. Instead we'll add a dialog to allow all of the Program
Files to be installed in a different location; not just the image files.

Best Regards,

Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
http://www.object-arts.com
---
Are you trying too hard?
http://www.object-arts.com/Relax.htm
---

Andy

> Are you saying that you both chose the custom install option and installed
> the IMG, SML and CHG files to a location that was not the default? If so,
> that is not legal, and we'll have to stop the installer from allowing the
> change of location. Instead we'll add a dialog to allow all of the Program
> Files to be installed in a different location; not just the image files.

I'm not sure if it's relevant, but here's a non-bug report ;-)

I chose the "custom" option in the installer and installed to a non-default
location, and it worked fine.  I.e. all the files, the shortcuts, etc. went
to the right place.

> Andy Bower

    -- chris

Andy,

> Are you saying that you both chose the custom install option and installed
> the IMG, SML and CHG files to a location that was not the default? If so,
> that is not legal,

Then I'd better not admit to it :)    Actually, that's not what I did.  I
did choose the custom install option (didn't really make any changes),
installed for every user on the machine, and that's about it.  On first-run,
I tried to save-as to my usual c:\...\Dolphin5beta3\Dolphin.* naming, and
got the walkback we discussed earlier.

I ended up saving the files as Professional.* in the default location (just
hit save image instead of save-as) and then copied/renamed them as I wanted.
 From there, I set up my own shortcut, which I've started doing anyway
because it ends up making life a lot easier.

Basically, I don't care where the VM and default image appear on the drive;
I simply want control over my image's location, and (when it's working)
save-as takes care of that.

Does that help?

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

On Thu, 4 Apr 2002 18:17:49 +0100, "Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> We have decided, after much discussion and (on my part at least) some
> regret, to revert to the original licensing scheme and distribution of full
> keys by e-mail. ...

FWIW, I didn't much like the Beta activation when I installed yesterday, though it went just fine.

After reviewing the comments here, and thinking about it, I have two thoughts:

1. In justice, even /one/ stolen copy of someone else's work is too many. I've installed Dolphin on all my computers, as I replace and upgrade, and Andy has
always been prompt to send me the keys when I have lost them. The problem, of course, is that those keys would work for anyone if I were to hand them
out. We know that some people have done that. It is, simply, wrong.

2. It is very demoralizing, often beyond the money value, to have one's work stolen.  This hurts us all, because when folks get sufficiently demoralized, they
stop working. We don't want OA to stop working.

That said, software installation does need to be very easy and smooth, in order to keep the customer tuned in at that early moment. In the past thirty days, I
have sent back products just because they wouldn't quickly and correctly install in my life. "The emperor is not as patient as I am."

I applaud OA for responding to the complaints about the new activation. And while I agree that one man's porn is another's erotica, I'm pretty sure that
sharing a copy of Dolphin with our friends is stealing, not open source development.

I don't have an answer. I would live with a trickier install if it would keep OA happier and help them keep going.

Regards,

Hi Andy,

>
> Are you saying that you both chose the custom install option and installed
> the IMG, SML and CHG files to a location that was not the default? If so,
> that is not legal, and we'll have to stop the installer from allowing the
> change of location. Instead we'll add a dialog to allow all of the Program
> Files to be installed in a different location; not just the image files.
>

I don't think I used the custom install, but you can never be sure ;-)

Anyway, I did a complete uninstall and remove, downloaded beta3 from your
site again, did a complete reinstall, went through the unlock procedure, and
it all appears to work now. Was I trying too hard ?

Thanks,

Ted