OT: Software Licensing

[Charles Martin]

> From: "Tom R. no spam" <tr5374 at csc.albany.edu>
>
> Exactly how does this work?  How much does it involve giving up
> privacy or security?  Can the company access your computer and
> change it?  Isn't that illegal?  Does using their software give
> them a license to access, etc your computer?

Not at present, though of course Microsoft are working to change that.

The RIAA recently proposed being allowed to "hack into" computers 
suspected of file trading. When it was pointed out to them that this 
was illegal as defined by legislation THEY HELPED WRITE, they started 
advocating for a special exception for themselves. You can imagine how 
well THAT idea went down.

Software licensing on the Mac is mostly on the "honour system." The 
most prominent example is Mac OS X itself, which ships on completely 
unprotected CDs. I could come over to your house, bring my OS X CDs, 
and in about half an hour you'd be running Jaguar. No "phoning home" 
(except to register the computer, and this can be avoided), no 
"spyware," no "copy protection." Apple trusts the majority of its users 
to do the right thing and NOT distribute the software to people who 
didn't pay for it. By and large, that trust has been rewarded. Apple 
even offered a multi-computer "home license" for people for the cost of 
about 1.5 copies of Jag, and by all accounts it was quite successful. 
For those of you who would like to run Jag on your desktop AND laptop 
AND be legal, you should look into it -- it's $199 (a single copy of 
Jag costs $129) and covers up to FIVE computers in one household.

By way of contrast, try to think of ANY individual PC user you've ever 
met who paid for a full copy of Windows at full retail (not included on 
his machine) out of HIS OWN POCKET. Yeah right.

Most other software have only serial numbers to protect them from being 
widely copied (ie the software won't work without a valid serial 
number). Again, in the Mac community this seems to work fairly well. 
I'm sure there are a lot of graphic artists/musicians/video 
people/Office users who illegally "take the software home" and install 
it on their home machines when they shouldn't, but it's not seen as the 
HUGE problem it is on the PC side. That plus periodic "great deals" on 
Mac software (for example the recent "free InDesign w/a G4" and the 
"Office Party/Office Romance" promotions) tend to keep widescale piracy 
to a minimum.

We don't (as a group) even get into the whole "Kazaa/Napster/illegal 
movie downloading" thing the way the PC community does, even though we 
DO have most of the tools we'd need to do so. We take *pride* in how 
many songs we've bought from the iTunes Music Store even as PC people 
shake their heads and wonder why anyone would pay ANYTHING for music 
anymore. We seem to grasp that even at broadband speeds, it's not worth 
our time to steal a movie when you can just buy the damn thing for $20 
or less ... maybe because we get PAID more than $20 for an hour or two 
of our time, or maybe because using the Mac means you VALUE your time 
more.

So, are Mac people more honest -- or dumber -- than Windows people?  I 
used to wonder about that, but then it was explained to me in a way 
that made sense, and now seems like a good opportunity to share it. I 
don't know if it's true, but I like it:

"The reason Mac people tend to steal LESS than our Windows brethren is 
quite simple, really -- we tend to actually create THINGS OF VALUE with 
our machines, so we learn to appreciate the concept of being paid for 
our efforts, and since we often picture most Mac developers as people 
more or less like us, we extend that principle to them as we would a 
friend or colleague. PC users, on the other hand, see only a sea of 
faceless, soulless, greedy corporations ... it's much easier to 'steal' 
from 'entities' than it is from 'folks.'"

Anyway, the bottom line is that on the Mac at least, copy protection of 
the draconian nature used by MS, Quark, Intuit and a handful of others 
is largely restricted to a) very expensive programs and b) bad PC 
ports. By and large, Mac software publishers have to trust their users 
not to *egregiously* abuse the terms of the EULA. And for the most 
part, that trust is well-placed in the typical Mac users. PC users have 
to deal with onerous "activations," arcane serial/registration rituals, 
spyware, network copy blocking and even (it's rumoured) deliberate 
"worms" that check up on them and monitor their use of software, 
perhaps even DAMAGE unregistered software!

Sadly, we are feeling some of the effects of our PC brethrens' bad 
behaviour. Copy protection is getting more advanced largely because 
THEY can't stop stealing massive quantities of software, not because 
WE'RE suddenly much more thieving than we used to be. And, as I said 
before, it always tends to hurt HONEST consumers more than it hurts the 
pirates. If it were up to Apple, most companies would adopt THEIR 
"copy-protection" model rather than Microsoft's.

_Chas_

"Apple is fighting three myths: one is that you pay a huge price 
premium; the second is that there is no software; and the third is that 
they are tremendously proprietary. The truth is, none of those things 
are accurate -- Apple is price competitive relative to their 
competitors; there is plenty of software for the tasks most individuals 
need to do and beyond; and Apple supports far more open standards than 
any other competing operating system. You combine that with a product 
like the G5, and you have to believe that lots of people are going to 
start taking a look at this -- if they can overcome their Apple 
prejudice." -- Michael Gartenberg, Jupiter Research