From owner-freebsd-current Wed Sep 25 12:20:21 1996 Return-Path: owner-current Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA03731 for current-outgoing; Wed, 25 Sep 1996 12:20:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from agora.rdrop.com (root@agora.rdrop.com [199.2.210.241]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id MAA03682; Wed, 25 Sep 1996 12:20:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rocky.mt.sri.com by agora.rdrop.com with smtp (Smail3.1.29.1 #17) id m0v5zV3-00091yC; Wed, 25 Sep 96 12:20 PDT Received: (from nate@localhost) by rocky.mt.sri.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id NAA12845; Wed, 25 Sep 1996 13:05:00 -0600 (MDT) Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 13:05:00 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199609251905.NAA12845@rocky.mt.sri.com> From: Nate Williams To: Terry Lambert Cc: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu (Bill Paul), jhs@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org, serious@freebsd.org, commercial@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Licensing Software In-Reply-To: <199609251823.LAA06357@phaeton.artisoft.com> References: <199609251416.KAA22427@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> <199609251823.LAA06357@phaeton.artisoft.com> Sender: owner-current@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk [ Licensing schemes ] > > Think hard about this. It's not as easy as it may first appear. With > > PCs, you can swap out practically all the hardware, particularly ethernet > > cards, so trying to find a hardware ID value that doesn't change is a > > real challenge. Heck, I switch ethernet cards on my laptop a couple times/day. :) > > Another problem with using ethernet addresses is that you need to > > grovel around in /dev/kmem in order to get them. This would require your > > executable to be setgid kmem in order to work. > > No. If you use *IP* address, you don't have this problem. Heck, I switch IP addresses on my laptop 4-5 times/month. I also *could* switch the name of my system that often as well, but I usually don't since the hostname is irrelevant if your IP setup is valid. > I specifically referenced IP addresses in my discussion because: Neither IP address or ethernet address will work, because of all of the previous reasons, plus some that haven't been discussed. If I'm a mobile user, don't punish me for having the ability to be flexible. Basically, there is no good solution. My opinion of the matter is to make it a 'local' file that is hard to hack, and then someone hide it's location in the FS (inode #????) so that if you copy it to another machine it won't work. My opinion is that the software should work on *this* disk, and that everything else is subject to change. :) Nate