🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <24147@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG) writes:
>I thought that the major reason for the decline in copy protection was the
>fact that any update of Apple System software and/or new versions of the
>ROMs would almost certainly break most forms of copy protection.

	Yes and No.  The increase in "ROMing" of OS's is a contributory
	factor in the decline of copy protection, at least on the Mac as
	opposed to PC or II.  However, it's not the major factor, even on
	the Mac.  The ROMs on the Mac, which insulate the programmer from
	the physical hardware, merely required a different approach to
	protection (such as invisible files, etc).

>Just to clear the air a little, most user groups (including BMUG) are
>*not* Tortugas for software pirates.

	The larger user groups, most notably (in my personal experience)
	the Washington Apple Pi, have done a good deal of education in
	the piracy issue.  However, especially in the bad old Apple II
	days, your average user group meeting was 30 minutes of procedure,
	30 minutes of presentations, and 2 hours of swapping.  This has
	declined as the "average" user group member has changed and
	(in the case of Mac owners) Yuppified.

	Lets not even talk about Bulletin Boards!  I was ``undercover''
	on the infamous Pirate's Harbor for about a year, and the stories
	I can tell you (of amoung other things, software being pirated
	before it was officially released, by trusted beta testers)
	would curl your hair.

-- 
Robert J Woodhead, Biar Games, Inc.  !uunet!biar!trebor | trebor@biar.UUCP
"The lamb will lie down with the lion, but the lamb won't get much sleep."
     -- Woody Allen.