Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 13:05:00 -0600 (MDT) From: Nate Williams <nate@mt.sri.com> To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> Cc: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu (Bill Paul), jhs@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org, serious@freebsd.org, commercial@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Licensing Software Message-ID: <199609251905.NAA12845@rocky.mt.sri.com> In-Reply-To: <199609251823.LAA06357@phaeton.artisoft.com> References: <199609251416.KAA22427@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> <199609251823.LAA06357@phaeton.artisoft.com>
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[ 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
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