More on the 'A' word ;-)

I've been thinking about this all day.  Here's a few reflections and
suggestions.  I'm afraid it's a long post, but I hope you'll find it
constructive.

First, although it should be unnecessary, I'll emphasise that I, like all of
us here, want OA to be successful.  We like Dolphin and *want* to go on
using it.  Our lives (I know, this sounds Way Sad) would be to varying
degrees impoverished without it.  (I, for instance, would still be a Java
programmer....).   The more successful OA is, the better for all of us; for
one thing it keeps *our* costs and risks under better control.  For another,
if OA aren't distracted by non-essentials then they have more time to
improve and develop the product.

That's not to say that anyone's so stupid as to put OA's interests *ahead*
of their own...

Anyway, there seem to be about five "forces" as the Pattern people call it.
Not in any order of importance, except that I suspect that the last one has
the potential to be the biggest -- if mismanaged:

Force 1) OA have got to be protected against a leakage of revenue.  That is
the sole force working on one side of the equation, but it's a biggie.  I
don't have -- and don't want -- figures, so I can't judge how big the risk
is, nor how many otherwise legitimate customers it would pay OA to "loose"
in order to stem the leak (I quite accept that it is quite proper for them
to take such a judgement, even though I suspect that I'd be one of the ones
out in the cold -- one of the reasons I care a lot about finding a good
resolution to these problems).

The other four "forces" (with the partial exception of number 3) are, I
think, in opposition to the first.

Force 2)  Short-term risk.  We want to be assured that we'll be protected
against transient "blips" in the service.  We all know they can and do
happen.  Websites are fragile (I know, I've worked on them).  Infrastructure
does often go down, DOS attacks do happen.  Hell, I couldn't ping
www.sun.com this morning, and if there's one site in world that should have
Net availability sorted it's Sun's.

Two concrete suggestion about this (which complement each other rather than
being alternatives).  You've said that you intend to use an email backup for
when (not if) the server is out-of-service.  Why not have that always
available at the customer's option?  There are three advantages at least:

    - it'd be more convenient for a significant fraction of users
    - it'd keep the "fallback" facility exercised and visible.
    - it could use an alternative host on a different physical Net
      connection.

That last point is important (though perhaps not in the short term) since I
suspect that DOS attacks are still on the rise -- at least they were a few
months back, when I was last in the real swim of Net-related work.  For that
to help then of course it'd have to be a different piece of wire connected
to a different ISP -- but a dial-up phone line would be ample.

The second suggestion.  I don't know if it's feasible given your timebombing
mechanism, but if you could arrange it so that an installation would work
for, say, 36 hours without a valid activation key, then that would give
plenty of time to fix most Net/OA webserver infrastructure problems, and
would also allow anyone who chose to use the email option time to get their
activation key back.

Force 3) Long term risk.  If OA goes belly-up then we're all hosed to some
extent too.  For some people this will be a serious issue.  Speaking just
for myself, it's not something I'd loose sleep over.  My use for Dolphin is
not about supporting a customer-base, so its value for me is as a continuing
development.  If development stopped then it'd become worthless (to me)
pretty soon anyway, and -- with reasonable luck -- I'dve had time to migrate
away before all my registered machines died.  But other people and
organisations have different priorities, and different existing commitments
and investments.  I don't know about that so I'll say no more about it.

Force 4) Nuisance value.  This could range from the trivial interruption
like a trip out to the Net for a customer with an always-on connection, to a
major headache caused by not being able to copy images (these are *examples*
note, I'm not assuming that either will necessarily be built-in to whatever
solution you finalise on).  There are two aspects to this:

- 4a) How much day-to-day impact does it have on the customer's business?
You have to be very careful here, since people tend to value an
uninterrupted flow more than an economist would think was justified given
the actual cost of handling the interruptions.  Also people work in a wider
variety of environments, with a wider variety of external constraints than
it is necessarily easy to imagine.  Especially for a company with a
worldwide customer base.  There is an upside to this too -- a fair
percentage of customers will be willing to pay more to avoid hassle.  I
would be for one.  More later.

- 4b) How do your customer's *perceive* your attitude to this problem?  This
is in some ways a subtopic of my final "force", but there are a couple of
specific points I want to make.  This is about perception, image if you
like.  The question is whether you come across as essentially the good guys
or the bad.  It would be foolish for you to assume that all the opposition
you'd provoke would be entirely rational.  Much of it might not be; but
that -- even if it were true -- still wouldn't improve your bottom line at
all.  So it makes sense to try to minimise the problems, but  -- much more
than that -- *to be seen* to be trying to do so.

For instance, if you are aware (as you are) that you are asking your
customers to stomach some inconvenience, then you should *say so* (on the
website or whatever).  You could have a short paragraph apologising for the
inconvenience.  You might want to tell the background story about D4, just
as you did in this forum.  (There's a risk to that: it might be seen as a
challenge either to crack D5, or to deface the website, or to DOS you.)   A
little explanation goes a long way.

Another example.  If you find that time pressures mean that you have to
introduce a form of the activation scheme that you know will be unpopular,
but which is only intended as an interim fix until you have to time to
develop something better, then you should *say so*.  On the website, or
whatever.  You could also solicit concrete proposals for how to improve the
process.

Force 5) Intangibles.  What used to be known (still, is for all I know) as
the "goodwill" that you got as part of the deal when you bought an
established business.  Nobody here needs to be told that this is one of
OA/Dolphin's unique selling points.  My own feeling is that the goodwill
that you've worked to build up (and God knows what it has cost you -- I
wouldn't have had the patience) is a very major factor in Dolphin's success
(I hope I'm correct to call it a success).  What may not be obvious is that
it is threatened by the "activation code" thing in a way that is unfairly
nothing to do with OA.

Currently there are a few interpretations of the activation code stuff that
MS are bringing in.  One interpretation is that they are attempting to stem
the excessive illegal use of their products -- exactly the same as OA are.
This may be the case, and it's a fairly legitimate aim, if so.  The problem
(for you) is that there is another interpretation which is not uncommon:
that the activation code stuff is a tactical step in a longer term attempt
to *control* the way that people use their software (or software in general,
there's not that much difference these days) in order to increase MS's
revenues ever further.  People who hold to this line (and, yes, I am one)
also see things like MS Wallet in the same dark light.   I don't suppose
that the wider population of computer users is all that wildly bothered
about the question, but the programming community feels a lot more
threatened.  I'd guess that, though the full "M$ is a worse scourge than
Polio" form is relatively rare, either a large minority or a small majority
are actively wary of MS's tactics and sceptical of their published motives.

It is an unfortunate accident that while that issue is still very much in
the air, you are introducing a technology that (while it was never going to
popular anyway -- but you knew that) is also far too similar to what MS are
doing.  What's more you are using the same justification for doing so.  I
have to emphasise that I don't doubt your sincerity *at all*, although I do
suspect that MS's identical statements are mostly smokescreen.

You see how it goes ?  Under normal circumstances you might reasonably
expect to be given a fair hearing.  That your loyal (and we are loyal)
customers would see the difference between your legitimate need to protect
yourselves, and MS's (putative, but suspected) desire to own the world by
fair means or foul.  You *might* expect that; if so then I'm afraid you are
in for a nasty shock.  You have (no fault of yours) touched up against a
sore place and you'll get far more knee-jerk hostile reactions than could
ever normally be the case.

I have to admit that my own reactions have been strongly coloured by exactly
that (unthinking) reaction.  But that's an important datum for you -- if you
are expecting an entirely rational response to the scheme when it goes
public then...

I don't withdraw -- not for a minute -- anything I've said so far about the
problems this (in its form as stated up till today) would cause me, nor my
resolute opposition to it that form.  But I hope that you'll see why the
reaction came so *fast* and so with much more hostility (exaggeration, but I
can't think of a better word) than is normally the case from the Dolphin
community

I fear, too, that the "backlash" could be very great.  Not fatal, but a
major issue.  You've seen how strong the reaction can be even from a small
group of people who have (one way or another) a history of being on OA's
"side", who have an affection for you, or at least a respect for the way you
do business.

How do you avoid these problems ?  That's to say, how do you avoid getting
tarred with the brushes of manipulative greed and arrogant unconcern ?   I
don't know, but some things are worth saying:

    - the fact that you are none of manipulative, greedy, arrogant,
     or unconcerned is not -- just now -- a sufficient defence.  Having
     a pure heart will help in the afterlife, perhaps, but will cut only
     a limited amount of ice if (when) this goes live in anything
      like its current form.

    - you have to *communicate*.  Lots and lots.  It'll take time
      (and that'll take time from doing real work, which will benefit
      no one).  You'll have to have the story prepared in
      advance rather than waiting a few days while a crescendo
      of wailing builds.  It's worth mentioning that Blair's "perspective"
      post and Andy's "this is what happened with D4" post have
      helped *me* feel more positive about the whole thing.

    - get someone to vet what you put out.  Someone who is able to look
      at what you write from the point-of-view of an outsider with no
      assumption that OA are "good guys".

A couple of final things that don't really fit into the above narrative.

I like the idea of the surface mail CD.  That'd suit me better than the Net
download anyway, if only to avoid the download of 7-9M, plus the possibility
that I'd got (it happens rarely, but not never) a duff connection that
corrupts the data.  As a price point, I paid about $150 for the CD version
of IBM's VADD rather than the $100 for the download-only version.  And this
was when I was working for a Net infrastructure outfit with a Very Seriously
Wide net connection.  (One problem was that IBM's machines tended to be
overloaded and so couldn't supply data -- when they could run at all -- at
anything like the pace that I could have sucked it up.)

This has turned out to be even longer than I'd expected.  It would have been
shorter -- though, possibly, not by very much -- but I feel that I've been
very badly misunderstood recently and wanted to try to avoid further
misunderstandings.  In fact one of the lesser reasons for the post is to try
to put the record straight.

Another thing.  I've spent the entire evening on this post.  I'm not  David
Simmons to be able to produce long missives in "real time"; for me it takes
*work*.  All my posts do.  So, although I'm certainly not expecting anyone
to give my opinions greater weight just because it has cost me >5 hours
to write them down, I do hope I that what I have to say will be treated on
its merits, rather than a casual skim looking for points to disagree with.

    -- chris

"Chris Uppal" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]...

Chirs thanks for trying to categorize.

I'll try to keep my self brief:

force 1: I do not see activation as effective means in fighting force 1.
short term maybe (but just maybe) long term definitely no.

force 3: very important. most of my critical apps are still in d3, so I need
to be able to maintain them long time. I was planning a swithch to d5 this
summer.

force 5: I do not see MS as important in this factor and it is obscuring the
point. I feel that vendor is trying to offload his risk on my shoulders (at
high price for me), and I have enough of mine to carry allready. Even worse,
I feel this risk completely unnecessary since I do not believe it is any
real way helping figtin force 1.

----

Acceptable resolutions for me:
Fight the priracy by: delivering keycodes via snail mail (at mailing costs),
and/or as proposed in one of my previous mails, by live update.

Abstract:
I do not find activaton to be acceptable practice. To be more precise
anything that restricts me, or requires further authorization for installing
software once I have payed for it. Will flee when given option, or when  and
if my circumstances allow (but will definitely not be a happy camper).

Davorin Rusevljan

I've been keeping out of this as I don't use Dolphin in any commercial way
and haven't got any of the complications that other seem to be operating
under. I should also say that, probably because of the above, I have no
problem with activation schemes in general or the OA scheme in particular.

I'm quite surprised by the feeling that I am seeing, which seems to be that
OA should make no attempt to protect their product from theft if it in any
way hinders the end user in using the product in the way they want.  Meeting
both objectives seems to be an impossible aim, if the product is freely
usable by a legitimate end user then it will also be freely usable by anyone
who gets the product through illegal means. Using snail mail to deliver CDs
or keys is only viable if you can guarantee that illegal copies of the CD or
key can be prevented, obviously not the case.

Personally I have to say that some type of proactive authorisation scheme,
where each copy of a software product has to be registered for the machine
it runs on, is the only way I can see for providers of software to control
the problem of piracy.  It may be more flexible in the future, CPUs having
ID numbers which you have to specify when purchasing software maybe, but the
underlying linkage of product to machine seems inevitable.  What other ways
are there that would provide any sort of protection?

Like it or not it is the providers of the software that must have the say in
how they distribute it, not the end users, and the only two options seem to
be increased prices to cover losses or some sort of authentication scheme.
OA are not making anyone upgrade, existing users of D4 can continue as
normal, so it's their decision as to which of the two options will be the
best for the long term survival of Dolphin.  They will lose out if they do
nothing and sales are lost as a result of piracy, they will lose out if the
up the price and Dolphins position as the best low-cost Smalltalk disappears
and they will lose out with an authentication scheme upsetting users with
specific usage requirements.  OA are the only ones who know the full
situation and the only ones who can judge what is best for them.

OK, so I haven't got any answers but I just thought I might as well say what
I was thinking. FWIW, I will definitely be upgrading to D5, whatever it
finally looks like, when available.

Ian

"Ian Bartholomew" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:[hidden email]...

Thanks Ian for your opinon.

One of my standing points is that there is no significant financial gains
for OA in using activation. There is no significant amount of new licences
that shall be harvested in the longer term because of it. People who need it
are allready to very large extent legal customers. Those who do not need it,
they are not going to pay it, activation or not. And that is even not taking
account that scheme is very likely to get cracked anyway.

As a customer I am interested in buying development tool which I can be sure
that once I payed for it, I can install it without further obstructions or
asking further permisions. I am not interested in buying a car for which I
need aproval from Rover each time I want to add some gas to it, because
Rover suspects me that I might use the car in inapropriate way and cause
them some damage.

My concerns about copy protection are not maid up. As a perfectly legal
customer, I have been seriously burnt before (see previous posts), and once
should really be enough. Software producer can protect their product (and
they allready do) but there should be limits on how much can they do it on
customer expense.

Davorin Rusevljan

Davorin,

> force 3: very important. most of my critical apps are still in d3, so I
need
> to be able to maintain them long time. I was planning a swithch to d5 this
> summer.

One thing you might like to bear in mind is that there will be no
preferential upgrade path from D3 to D5. D3 users will have to buy a full D5
copy, which is why it would be best to upgrade your D3 copies to D4 before
the release (especially since this get you D5 at not extra cost).

Best Regards,

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