Re: How does this software work?? -- MI400

Velly intellesting:

From: "Simon Coulter" <shc@flybynight.com.au>
Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2001 1:07 AM

> My comments for what they are worth:

I believe you're on the right track here, Simon.

> issue a cease and desist notice to the marketing company.
> Why?  Because the tool allows a customer to access system
> resources they haven't paid for.

I have absolutely no doubt that this path will be explored.  This approach
of limiting resources by switch, is an ages-old IBM approach to money
gathering.  Now I'm not up do date on this since I got it second hand, so
somebody stop me if I misspeak, but I'm reminded of a lawsuit from the 60s
(?) here.

I believe it was the 401 tabulating machine, if I remember the story
correctly.  Whatever machine it was, there were two models: a fast model and
a really fast model.  When CEs needed to test this lesser model, they'd pull
a jumper off of a board and it ran amazingly fast... as fast as the more
expensive tool.  When they were done with their maintenance, of course, they
were to reinstall the jumper.  As human nature would dictate, Curious
Customer, who's always been fascinated by the efforts of the CE, saw this
happening, and after the CE left, did some experimenting. They discovered
that that jumper was the difference between the models.  Pull the jumper and
you've got yourself an upgrade.

Well, naturally sales of the higher model started to fall not long after
this, and IBM figured out why.  Those who had chosen this method of upgrade,
IBM presented an upgrade bill to.  The whole issue ended up being tested in
court.  So now there are laws governing this, saying basically that a
manufacturer can't legally charge more for a product whose only difference
is that it has less parts, or some such.  IBM lost on that one and had to
find more devious ways of engineering their various models of systems.

It's interesting now to see that same issue recirculate after all these
years.  Simon, I belive you are correct: we're seeing another lawsuit in the
works.  It'll be fascinating to see how it plays out.  Probably, IBM will
just block some more instructions so it's no longer possible on future
releases, but in any case I'm amused to see this issue resurface, and IBM to
again be the culprit in the argument.

Thanks, Simon, for reminding me of a great story-teller boss I had, who had
told me about this, years ago.
--
Qiu Min & Dennis Lovelady
mail: dennis@lovelady.com
URL:  http://www.lovelady.com
ICQ:  5734860
--
"The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the
largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing."
        - Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Apparently this applies to licensing, too.  :)