Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262525AbTENPVU (ORCPT ); Wed, 14 May 2003 11:21:20 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262526AbTENPVU (ORCPT ); Wed, 14 May 2003 11:21:20 -0400 Received: from 205-158-62-158.outblaze.com ([205.158.62.158]:56262 "HELO spf1.us.outblaze.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S262525AbTENPVR (ORCPT ); Wed, 14 May 2003 11:21:17 -0400 Message-ID: <20030514153440.14381.qmail@linuxmail.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: MIME-tools 5.41 (Entity 5.404) From: "Dean McEwan" To: root@chaos.analogic.com Cc: alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 15:34:40 +0000 Subject: Re: Digital Rights Management - An idea (limited lease, renting, expiration, verification) NON HARWARE BASED. X-Originating-Ip: 213.120.30.217 X-Originating-Server: ws5-8.us4.outblaze.com Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2507 Lines: 70 > The worst problem with expiring software is that a > company, operating in good faith, can be forced out > of business because if it. You shouldn't buy software from crappy "on_last_legs" companies. > Lets say that I have a company called BestInTheWorld. > Because I make the best data-base software in the world, > a lot of companies purchase a license to use this > software. The software expires in a year. This is no > problem because The software renewal is cheap. Soon > every company in Silicon Valley uses my software. > The company is going strong and needs to expand. It > issues public stock. > > Al Qaeda Lets stop there eh? AL QAEDA ? ANY GOV.T would let them buy stock? Controlling Stock ??? purchases controlling interest in the company > and closes it. In one year, everybody in Silicon Valley > is out of work because all the company's software > stopped working. Say M$ bought company that has "we can change this license at any time for this version of software" written in its license, M$ changes it and BOOM! Software now costs another $400,000 to use... My DRM would not allow this... Good Eh? Also GPL sources wouldn't work in proprietary work(s). > > Bad joke? Hell no. Digital thought about short-term > leasing of their software when they introduced LMF, > the license management facility. Once Digtal's lawyers > got involved, a patch was sent to everbody making damn > sure that the "expiration" capability was removed. > Nevertheless, FTP Software, that made TCP/IP to DECNET > sofware, continued to have software that expired. > > Basically, in many states in the USA, you can't sell or > lease something that will become worthless or unusable if > the seller or leasor no longer exists. If the renter makes > a good-faith effort to pay the rent, the renter continues > to enjoy use of the leased property. Creating property that > doesn't allow this violates common law. > > Cheers, > Dick Johnson > Penguin : Linux version 2.4.20 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips). > Why is the government concerned about the lunatic fringe? Think about it. > -- ______________________________________________ http://www.linuxmail.org/ Now with e-mail forwarding for only US$5.95/yr Powered by Outblaze - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/