----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Firshman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 9:25 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] Software pirates in our midst?
> > On Wed, 6 Nov 2002 at 21:06:28, Dave P wrote: > (ref: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) > > > > > > > > >On Wed, 6 Nov 2002, Jochen Merz wrote: > > > >> maybe I can add a bit of clarification here. > > > >Thanks for the clarification. > > > >As a member of the public, Wolfgang's approach aside, I can now see how he > >arrived there (just wish he gave us a chance to get up to speed too > >instead of throwing us in at the deep end! ;P) > > > >So, D&D are theiving scum. > > >If you bought one, contact Wolfgang directly > >and offer to pay the license fee. Seems fair. > The money is not the issue really. > The main point of the license is to ensure there is only one approved > version in the field. > D&D, according to their adverts, are selling a patched version. > > This is precisely what Wolfgang is striving to avoid. You're not still on about that are you, I can't belive it. Look at it like this there are 2 versions of 2.98, the first was flawed, the second was fixed. The second version makes the Q60 behave like other platforms _adding_ to uniformity across platforms. The first version makes the Q60 behave like nothing else because it is wrong. As you well know there has been more than 1 version of SMSQ/E with the same version number on a number of occasions. You will have seen new versions created at workshops for some reason but the version number was not incremented, these were probably bug fixes. You have supplied different versions of SMSQ/E with the same v. number to customers. I know this from the QL subgroup we used to run, I had the same version of SMSQ/E on my Aurora from Jochen yet when I installed your supplied SMSQ/E on another Aurora owned by one of the group it would not work correctly, not until 2? months had passed and you sent him a repaired/altered/patched version which I installed and hey presto it worked. All the same version number. This has always happened in our group. I took my master SMSQ/E disk to Jochen years ago with a problem after a recent update and he said "Yes there is a fix", took the disk overwrote it and gave it me back. I asked "Is that a new version then?" he said "No, it has the same version number". I asked "How many different versions of the same number are there". He smiled and replied "Two". It has always been this way. It is perfectly acceptable, this is what happens when something is under development. Look at it another way. I travel hundreds of miles to see Jochen at a workshop - in the above example - he says "Yes, there is a fix" and waves a disc at me. "But", he says "You cannot have it, you must wait for a couple of months because that is when the next version will be compiled and released." I say "You're �$%$%^&&* joking, I'm standing in front of you, a fully paid up owner of SMSQ/E and you've got what I need now but your asking me to wait 2 months, $%^&�)( hell fire". "I've travelled a long way for this could I not sway your opinion?" Hope you enjoyed that. The point is in the above situation it is bad customer practice, too rigid and generally not nice, although officially correct. SMSQ/E was patched all over the place to get it working the Aurora then eventually well sorted versions would appear, no great fuss. It's just progress during development. We (D&D) are the ones that have never done this sort of thing (altered SMSQ/E). When we started we received v2.98 SMSQ/E and have never used another version. Absolutely consistant all the way though. TT knows of the version we fist used and guess what, it is still the same. Jochen accepted the licence fees for it, what have D&D done wrong with this original code? We state that we supply v2.98 'patched' to give it an ID. We didn't produce the code, we were given v2.98 'patched' to use when building Q40i/Q60, it is still the one we offer now the chips were blown last year, they are not new. I think I've covered everything concerning 'patched'. That's it. Dennis - D&D Systems
