subject:"Re\: \[Finale\] Authentication schemes"

On 11 Mar 2005 at 10:20, Robert Patterson wrote:

 I don't think I'm being dishonest. I never qualified eventually. The
 whole point about forever is that it is, well, forever. If your
 software doesn't quit working in 15 years, then it will quit during
 the next 15 years, and if not then, then in the next, or the next, or
 the next, or the next. 4 billion years is just a facetious way of
 bringing home the point. It WILL happen.

But we aren't talking about the end of the universe.

We aren't talking about forever.

We're talking about the interval of a few years after the failure of 
MakeMusic, when Finale users would need some capability to use their 
files. During that interval, with a key escrow setup, they'd have a 
choice to take their time moving away from Finale, but would not be 
interrupted in their work (and that applies only to people in the 
position of needing to install on a new computer, thus requiring an 
authentication key).

Assuming that Coda continues to release a new version of Finale every 
year, and that Microsoft (why we're limiting this discussion to MS, I 
don't know) continues to release a new version of Windows every 3-5 
years, these things would be true:

1a. the last 3 or 4 versions of Finale are likely to run just fine on 
the most recent version of Windows. 

1b. Earlier versions may have a few features that don't work exactly 
perfectly, but most likely (if history is any guide), editing and 
printing will remain usable. My bet is that WinFin versions back to 
3.x will still run just fine on WinXP (that's about 10 years ago, 
right?).

2. Microsoft tends to release a new major version of Windows every 3-
5 years or so, versions that change major parts of the underpinnings 
of Windows (Windows 1, 1987, Win3, 1990 (while Win3.1 was a huge big 
deal in terms of usability because of the introduction of TrueType 
fonts, it was otherwise pretty much exactly the same as 3.0), Win95, 
1995, and on the NT side, NT3.1 (i.e., version 1), 1991, NT 4, 1996, 
Win2K, 1999 (WinXP is an upgrade to Win2K, not a major rewriting of 
Windows)). But in none of those major upgrades was backwards 
compatibility broken. Sure, a few apps had problems, but there were 
virtually no apps that won't run at all or whose main functions are 
disabled or fundamentally broken.

If one assumes that MakeMusic goes under, it will happen when most 
Finale users are:

1. using the latest version or one of the last 2 or 3 versions, AND

2. those on Windows will be using the last two *minor* versions of 
Windows, with a handful still on the previous *major* version of 
Windows (translated: today, it's roughly something like 50% WinXP, 
40% Win2K and the remainder using mostly Win98 or NT 4; Win2K would 
be higher if it had been marketed properly, rather than just to 
businesses), but the exact mix depends on when MM fails in relation 
to the Windows release cycle. 

Should MM fail just before the release of Longhorn, the last version 
of Finale will be more likely to have very minor problems than if it 
were designed after the release of the next major version of Windows. 
Nonetheless, IF HISTORY IS ANY GUIDE, even in the case of a pre-
Longhorn version of Finale, the software is likely to still be 
perfectly usable on Longhorn for basic editing and printing, though 
there may be certain cosmetic and non-essential elements that don't 
work 100%.

Now, that could change if Longhorn included major changes to these 
subsystems:

1. printing and rendering

2. MIDI

3. file system

while also purposely yanking support for legacy behavior in regard to 
these major subsystems.

In the case of Win16 programs (which was different in all of these 
aspects), Microsoft has included full support to this day (they 
carefully designed the Win32 APIs and the altered subsystems to make 
it work), even though there are now no longer any significant 16-bit 
applications out there anywhere. And DOS doesn't exist any more, but 
the command prompt is DOS compatible (highly compatible, in fact) and 
runs a large number of DOS programs from the beginning of DOS, even 
going so far as to providing substantial control of parameters that 
can be tweaked to allow misbehaving legacy DOS programs to run (check 
out the properties for a DOS prompt to see how much can be adjusted).

Now, so far, the only areas of those three that Longhorn is changing 
is the screen rendering (Avalon) and the file system (WinFS, delayed 
until after the original release of Longhorn), and both are scheduled 
to be ported to other versions of Windows, which suggests neither is 
going to break legacy apps.

The last time Microsoft changed the file system (long file names), 
they implemented some very clever hacks to allow older apps to still 
work. Yes, you end up seeing ugly file names, but you can still use 
the files (i.e., the problem was purely cosmetic, rather than 
functional).

So far as I know they've not made major changes to the rendering 
subsystem.

Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 11 Mar 2005 at 11:31, Andrew Stiller wrote:

 On Mar 10, 2005, at 3:20 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  Couperin and Charpentier
  Lessons of Tenebre
 
 That would be:  Lessons for Tenebrae.

You know, I've always had a block on that -- I spelled it right at 
first, but then rememebered the French on the Charpentier MS (Leçons 
des tenebres) and lost my nerve. Of course, now that I look at the MS 
again, I see that my memory it was incorrect, as it is only singular.

Chalk it up to never having formally studying either French or Latin.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc


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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 11 Mar 2005 at 20:37, d. collins wrote:

 David W. Fenton écrit:
 You know, I've always had a block on that -- I spelled it right at
 first, but then remembered the French on the Charpentier MS (Leçons
 des tenebres) and lost my nerve. Of course, now that I look at the MS
 again, I see that my memory it was incorrect, as it is only singular.
 
 Actually, it's plural (Leçons de ténèbres), but without the article
 (which, contracted with the preposition, becomes des). The singular
 ténèbre is not used.

I googled on it and found all sorts of variations, clearly by people 
who, like me, don't know their French.

The Charpentier MS doesn't have the cedilla on the c or any accents 
on the e's, either.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc


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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-11 Thread Robert Patterson

David W. Fenton wrote:
Yes, you may have to recompile your runtime under the most recent 
.NET version,
Recompiling is not an option in this context. What I am saying is that 
my old DOS utilities continue to run *without* recompile since the last 
time I build them in the mid-1980s. Meantime, I think there is every 
chance that my ASP.NET apps of today will require being recompiled to 
run under some not-very-distant OS version only a few years hence.

I also disagree that the Windows backwards-compatibility picture is as 
rosy as you suggest, but ymmv. It certainly has a better track record 
over 25 years than does MacOS.

--
Robert Patterson
http://RobertGPatterson.com
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 11 Mar 2005 at 14:04, Robert Patterson wrote:

 David W. Fenton wrote:
 
  Yes, you may have to recompile your runtime under the most recent
  .NET version,
 
 Recompiling is not an option in this context. What I am saying is that
 my old DOS utilities continue to run *without* recompile since the
 last time I build them in the mid-1980s. Meantime, I think there is
 every chance that my ASP.NET apps of today will require being
 recompiled to run under some not-very-distant OS version only a few
 years hence.

Well, ASP.NET is server-side, not client-side, so it's a very 
different situation. The upgrade from PHP 3.x to PHP 4.x on one of my 
clients' web hosts caused an application to break (it wouldn't have 
corrupted the data as well if MySQL were not a toy database, though, 
lacking referential integrity enforcement at the engine-level with 
its native table format). 

Server applications are simply a completely different kettle of fish, 
especially when you're running your application on top of another 
application (ASP is run on top of IIS, which is a component shipped 
with the server OS, but not part of the OS kernel). I would guess 
that if the future version of Windows can run the version of IIS for 
which your ASP.NET application was written, your app will run fine 
(assuming no depencies outside ASP.NET), but I doubt that will be 
allowed (just as with IE, I believe you can't downgrade IIS below the 
version that shipped with the OS).

But overall, my bet is that Microsoft has a much poorer backward 
compatibility track record on server software than they do on desktop 
software.

And in all the cases described where something broke (including my 
own), each example was an application written in an interpreted 
language running on top of various layers of support between the 
application and the OS.

That kind of thing is wholly irrelevant to the discussion at hand, 
which is about Finale, which is a desktop application compiled in 
native code, not interpreted code.

So, I would say your examples of apps that break are very ill-chosen 
for the topic of discussion.

 I also disagree that the Windows backwards-compatibility picture is as
 rosy as you suggest, but ymmv. It certainly has a better track record
 over 25 years than does MacOS.

I don't have a single client who has been forced to upgrade a piece 
of software only because the older version would not run on a new 
version of Windows.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 11 Mar 2005 at 21:04, d. collins wrote:

 David W. Fenton écrit:
 The Charpentier MS doesn't have the cedilla on the c or any accents
 on the e's, either.
 
 The Couperin original print has only one accent, and it's wrong (by
 modern standards): tenébres.
 
 I accompanied all three today, by the way, while you were discussing
 authentication ;-). One of my favorite works from 1714.

Our concert includes the three Couperin, two of the Charpentier 
Lessons (Wednesday and Thursday) and a Couperin Magnificat. We're 
performing them Sunday, March 20th at St. Joseph's in the Village and 
Wednesday, March 23rd at a church on the Upper West Side whose name I 
forget.

Marvelous music, indeed, but boy, do I need to practice, especially 
the obligato lines in the first two Couperin Lessons!

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc


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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-11 Thread Noel Stoutenburg

In a response to Robert Patterson, where David W. Fenton wrote, in part:
We're talking about the interval of a few years after the failure of 
MakeMusic, when Finale users would need some capability to use their 
files. During that interval, with a key escrow setup, they'd have a 
choice to take their time moving away from Finale, but would not be 
interrupted in their work (and that applies only to people in the 
position of needing to install on a new computer, thus requiring an 
authentication key).
 

I would note there is an unacknowledged assumption that the end of 
MakeMusic! and the end of authentication will necessarily be 
simultaneous.  I know of no reason to believe this would be the case, 
and indeed, given the favorable treatement of users in other 
areas--unlimited free tech support, and publishing file formats, to name 
two specific examples, I am persuaded that it is unlikely, in the event 
MM! failed, that they would let the end users hang at that point.  I am 
further persuaded that it is far more likely, that in the event of MM!s 
failure, some other entity whether established by personnel from 
MakeMusic!, or an outside entity which picks up kep technical people 
from the current existing company will acquire the copyrights, and 
continue to support the software.  I would be much more concerned about 
my ability to continue to use Finale, and obtain new authentication 
codes if MakeMusic! were three guys operating with all contact through 
the internet, post-office boxes, and wireless phones. 

I will note that as a workflow issue, I do most of my work in 2k, a 
working custom I started using in the Autumn of 2k, when I discovered 
that the new library I had created in 2k1 was unusable in 2k (Perception 
problem on my part; I knew there was no backwards compatibility of data 
files, I just didn't consider a library to be a data file at the time).  
Thereafter, almost all work I do, (certainly all shapes I design, and 
all libraries and templates I create, are done initially in 2k, and 
imported as needed into a later version when I need a feature first 
available there.

I would also suggest that the question of the continued accessibility of 
software is merely part of a larger issue relating to copyright, and I 
would note that as I write that, it occurs to me that there is a 
copyright issue in an escrow code, too.

ns
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Daniel Wolf

Noel Stoutenburg wrote:
to which I would suggest a better option would be for the group of 
power users to buy shares, and make a point of this at the 
shareholder's meeting.

ns
_
A point made at a shareholder's meeting by minority shareholders is 
usually ignored.  Been there, done that: the response from the majority 
shareholders is usually, you don't like the corporate policy, then sell 
your shares, we think the present policy will earn more money and 
selling your handful of shares will have no impact on share price.  A 
point made by commercial clients to the shareholders concerning a faulty 
product is much more likely to have an effect on corporate policy as it 
implies a direct result on the corporate sales results.

Daniel Wolf
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

David W. Fenton wrote:
On 9 Mar 2005 at 22:57, Simon Troup wrote:

I'm not certain that releasing unlock codes or whatever is feasible as
it would seriously damage the companies ability to be sold on if a
catastrophe happened, as the prvious version of the software would be
available to use easily in unlocked form.

Uh, it wouldn't be released until the corporate entity ceased to 
exist. If there's something to be sold, then it hasn't ceased. A 
properly designed corporate will would deal with the issue of 
transfer of control of the escrowed key to the new entity.

I'm wondering, though, if Dennis has any examples of software 
companies that have established a key escrow program. How do they 
publicize that fact, and how has it been structured?

I also wonder if subsequent purchasers of the company would continue to 
be bound by any untether escrow that MakeMusic might establish now. 
Once MakeMusic has turned over control of their software assets to 
another entity, that entity can simply abolish the escrow, since there 
is no contractual obligation between MakeMusic and anybody else to force 
MakeMusic to establish it in the first place.

--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

Simon Troup wrote:
[snip]
In such a situation some other form of backing up your right to use the
program would be better. Emagic used to issue keys on floppy disc (way,
way back!) and you could transfer the keys via the floppy. I wonder if
there's some more up to date way of effecting the same idea? Perhaps
that was what Darcy was talking about ...
Darcy James Argue wrote:
I seem to recall someone saying something about at least creating
some method for a user to transfer their registration from one
computer to another without having to contact Coda

Solving that is probably one of those conundrums like the public key encryption 
system.
Sibelius uses such a system currently -- you can transfer the printing 
and saving capabilities between machines using a floppy (or presumably 
some other medium), so the first machine's copy is crippled and the 
second machine's copy is enabled.

Of course, if some tragedy happens to the transfer medium, both copies 
of the program remain unusable without contacting the company.

One thought occurs, which might actually be a good business venture to 
begin:  Somebody could establish a company whose sole purpose is to 
issue validation or authentication codes for software, all independent 
of the original publishers of those applications.  Outsourcing 
authentication to a company who would be likely to remain in business 
because it would have so many corporate clients that the failure of any 
one client wouldn't force it out of business.

It wouldn't even matter whether all the clients used the same 
authentication process, such an entity could handle them all, including 
the ability to release a permanent, machine-independent unlock code for 
applications published by companies which go out of business.

--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

Daniel Wolf wrote:
Noel Stoutenburg wrote:
to which I would suggest a better option would be for the group of 
power users to buy shares, and make a point of this at the 
shareholder's meeting.

ns
_

A point made at a shareholder's meeting by minority shareholders is 
usually ignored.  Been there, done that: the response from the majority 
shareholders is usually, you don't like the corporate policy, then sell 
your shares, we think the present policy will earn more money and 
selling your handful of shares will have no impact on share price.  A 
point made by commercial clients to the shareholders concerning a faulty 
product is much more likely to have an effect on corporate policy as it 
implies a direct result on the corporate sales results.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the corporate clients, such as 
Warner Brothers and Hal Leonard don't have to go through the 
authentication process at all.  I bet that corporate versions don't have 
that process in the code, since the onus for policing licensed 
installations would fall on the corporation, subject to surprise audits 
by the publishers.

--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Linda Worsley

d. collins wrote:
Well, this is where I completely disagree with you. If all your 
worried about is printing your files, why don't you simply back 
them up as PDFs?
I already make pdfs of everything.  I also print multiple copies of 
everything, date them, and put them in archive.

Geeze the way things are going in the world I may have to gather wood 
to burn for cooking and heating, buy a horse to take me around, plant 
my own garden and keep a root cellar, etc.  Not that I think those 
things are imminent or inevitable, but if the time comes I have to 
re-enter a score in different software, I can do that.  And if I have 
to recopy music by hand to make changes... well, when I started 
writing music in my teens, that was my ONLY choice.  And when I think 
of extracting parts by hand (which I did for decades) it makes me 
very patient with the quirks of part extraction in Finale.

I agree with those who are gloomy about the digital possibilities, 
but I'm prepared.  I'm just sayin'...

Backup, backup, backup.  Redundency is good enough for flight 
systems, and it's good enough for me.

In spite of which, I agree that tethered software is what my son, the 
computer genius, calls customer abuse.  In fact, I believe in open 
source software, and I hope it is the wave of the future.  But that's 
another book.

Linda Worsley
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Dennis Bathory-Kitsz

Goodness. I came back to 41 more messages on the topic.

Dennis Collins said, You aren't victimized by the authentication process
in itself. But indeed you are. It encourages a where are your papers
mentality. You must always be ready to explain yourself to a private
entity. It extends corporate power into one's personal and business life.
It encourages support of the company beyond the purchase of the product
itself in order to keep the authentications available. It fosters false
security, false loyalty, and an atmosphere of fear.

How many drops does it take to fill that bucket? How many infringements on
your ability to be and work independently do you accept until your are
bound in every way to a corporatized world view, where everything (and
everybody) is ultimately for sale?

So my concerns are both quotidien and philosophical.

I agree with Robert Patterson about the nature of the abuse, as well as the
difficulty of fighting it. I believe such a fight is important, considering
that he points out that the company's management has already changed more
than once. Ultimately, it can't be trusted to take our interests seriously.

Simon Troup and I share a history of having written and marketed software.
I ran a computer business for seven years. In that way, I am sympathetic to
Coda/MM. On the other hand, the company (and similar companies) have only
done half the job -- they've protected only themselves and their
investments. Whatever indirect help that may be to customers should not be
borne by those same customers. It is the company's responsibility, and such
a burden shift is not only philosophically repugnant, it is ultimately
harmful ... as, at this point, everyone has agreed because The Demise will
come sooner or later.

David Fenton said that I was talking about the fact that everyone who
upgrades their data to the authenticated version is flying without a
parachute. As long as the airplane stays in the air with the engines
running and doesn't catch fire, everything is great. That is an absolutely
correct interpretation of my practical objection ... the individual,
non-societal impact of Coda/MM behavior. David explains well that
implementing an escrow program is a reasonable parachute, especially, as he
notes, that Finale/Sibelius could well end up following the Beta/VHS path
to oblivion for one of them, with Sibelius's successful marketing making it
the winner.

Simon Troup asks, My expectation is that there are enough punters in the
market place for the two current big players, I'm wondering if Dennis
thinks we're all on some kind of precipice. Indeed, I think we are, in two
ways.

Here is the first: Although the feelings differ here because we are an
international group, I am very sensitive to issues of privacy and personal
liberty. We are not on a slippery slope, but indeed on a precipice where
the U.S. is turning drivers licenses into de facto national identity cards,
where people cannot travel domestically without a government-issued ID but
are forbidden by law to see the regulations that require it, where
corporations are given free rein to include regulation of personal behavior
outside the workplace, and where -- as we find ourselves fully inside an
information society -- information is increasingly classified as
ownership-based intellectual property and the commons is shrunk to
meaninglessness.

And here is the second: We observe, not only with Coda/MM, but with other
software makers (and related cultural institutions) a move 'toward the
center' -- meaning the re-positioning of products to attract larger
audiences, as opposed to improving their products within the existing
audiences. We have seen incremental improvements in Finale's core purpose,
but the addition of bells and whistles (such as human playback) that
increase its ability without fixing its flaws in design/interface and
product output. To me, that's a red-flag signal that they are moving toward
making Finale a legacy product -- with the failure of Coda/MM if its market
shift fails. (Note how this dovetails with David Fenton's marketing
argument and his Beta/VHS analogy.)

David Bailey asks, Does anybody know for a fact that they have not set up
such an escrow? and David Fenton asks, I'm wondering, though, if Dennis
has any examples of software companies that have established a key escrow
program. How do they publicize that fact, and how has it been structured?
I certainly don't know. The only third-party escrow programs that I'm aware
of are source code escrow for corporate-corporate software contracts, and
the government's interest in encryption key escrow. The latter is not
relevant, and the former shows that, although an escrow process is
possible, source code escrow is unhelpful for individual customers of a
product like Finale. (I agree with David Fenton's answer to Noel about
depositing the escrow with a major institution.)

(Thanks to Darcy for the Dr. Strangelove quote.)

David Bailey notes, Most corporations don't

Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Noel Stoutenburg

dhbailey wrote:
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the corporate clients, such as 
Warner Brothers and Hal Leonard don't have to go through the 
authentication process at all.  I bet that corporate versions don't 
have that process in the code, since the onus for policing licensed 
installations would fall on the corporation, subject to surprise 
audits by the publishers.
While I can't speak to the situation with respect to WB (now Alfred) or 
Hal Leonard, I did call MakeMusic! yesterday, and enquire about site 
licenses.  It turns out, that if your firm has a network, there is no 
authentication required, but there is a small network monitor program 
that prevents more copies of Finale from being simultaneously active 
than the number of site licenses permits.  A company with a site 
license, but where Finale is not on a network, must deal with the 
authentication process for each copy of the software, according to the 
sales department.

ns
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Christopher Smith

On Mar 10, 2005, at 2:21 AM, d. collins wrote:
Noel Stoutenburg écrit:
I've found it necessary, on account of hard drive failure, to 
reinstall 2k4 three times, and the biggest inconvenience I 
experienced was having to wait until the Finale office opened later 
in the morning, to call and request a new authentication code.  
Considering that reinstalling the software more than one working day, 
there was really not an inconvenience here, nor was I, IMO, 
victimized.
I agree with you. You aren't victimized by the authentication process 
in itself. But you will be victimized the day MM no longer supplies 
the new codes, and you can no longer reinstall your 2K4. And then it 
will be too late to do anything about it. You're satisfied with the 
idea of trashing the software you purchased (this could happen in 6 
months), of using Notepad to print your files and of waiting for some 
third party to produce compatible software (this is precisely how 
you're victimized: not by having to call to get a code, but by not 
being able to get one). I'm not.

Dennis
Well, strictly speaking, you can install 2004 and use it for 30 days 
before it refuses to run. That should give you enough time to call up, 
edit, and print any of your files.

Christopher
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Darcy James Argue

I think Chris meant call up in the sense of call up your files 
(i.e, open your files), not call up Coda.

Of course, your point about What do you do when your 30 days are up? 
remains.

- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY
On 10 Mar 2005, at 9:29 AM, d. collins wrote:
Christopher Smith écrit:
Well, strictly speaking, you can install 2004 and use it for 30 days 
before it refuses to run. That should give you enough time to call 
up, edit, and print any of your files.
I don't know how closely you've been following this thread, but the 
discussion is precisely about the day where you can no longer call up 
because no-one will be answering. Then what do you do?

Dennis
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Christopher Smith

On Mar 10, 2005, at 9:29 AM, d. collins wrote:
Christopher Smith écrit:
Well, strictly speaking, you can install 2004 and use it for 30 days 
before it refuses to run. That should give you enough time to call 
up, edit, and print any of your files.
I don't know how closely you've been following this thread, but the 
discussion is precisely about the day where you can no longer call up 
because no-one will be answering. Then what do you do?

Dennis
I meant call up your files. I should have written ...enough time to 
open, edit, and print... The software works for 30 days without any 
contact with MakeMusic. When the thirty days are up, delete it and 
reinstall for another 30 days, if you need to. Probably after Finale 
goes under you will be creating your new works on some other software, 
so this should permit you to re-print and edit your old files.

I do this from time to time when I have to work on a strange computer. 
Usually it's only for a couple of days, but the 30-day grace period is 
very nice, and seems to be aimed precisely at the kind of user I am. 
Plus, if anyone else happens to see it there, they get to play with it 
until it lapses, which is pretty good advertising, I should say. I was 
first attracted to Finale in a similar way when I was working on a 
large arranging project with a colleague, and I learned how to enter 
with Speedy, which saved time instead of having him do everything. 
There was a time lapse, but I eventually bought Finale myself.

Christopher
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Darcy James Argue

On 10 Mar 2005, at 10:25 AM, Christopher Smith wrote:
I meant call up your files. I should have written ...enough time to 
open, edit, and print... The software works for 30 days without any 
contact with MakeMusic. When the thirty days are up, delete it and 
reinstall for another 30 days, if you need to.
I haven't tried that myself, but I'm almost 100% certain it's not that 
simple.

- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

At 3/10/2005 10:36 AM, d. collins wrote:
Of course, your point about What do you do when your 30 days are up?
remains.

Indeed.
Does uninstall/reinstall work?
Phil Daley   AutoDesk 
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes


Christopher Smith schrieb:
I meant call up your files. I should have written ...enough time to 
open, edit, and print... The software works for 30 days without any 
contact with MakeMusic. When the thirty days are up, delete it and 
reinstall for another 30 days, if you need to. 
I am pretty sure that won't work, you would have to completely wipe your 
HD (possibly even reformat) to rerun Finale for 30 days.

(I am not really taking sides though, personally I was annoyed by the 
copyprotection, but on the other hand I do find it a little silly to 
claim that you could loose everything tomorrow. Yes, MM could be out of 
business tomorrow, but my computer would also have to die before I loose 
anything. Not impossible, but together a risk I am prepared to take.)

Johannes
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

What we are talking about here is emergency migration in the event of MM's 
demise. In that case, it would be acceptable to have a spare computer that you 
could reinstall the OS and/or reformat the drive so as to get the additional 30 
days.

The only viable migration target I can see is PDF, unless Sibelius or MusicXML 
become a great deal more comprehensive in their conversion coverage.

 -Original Message-
 From: Darcy James Argue [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 04:00 PM
 To: finale@shsu.edu
 Subject: Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes
 
 On 10 Mar 2005, at 10:25 AM, Christopher Smith wrote:
 
  I meant call up your files. I should have written ...enough time to 
  open, edit, and print... The software works for 30 days without any 
  contact with MakeMusic. When the thirty days are up, delete it and 
  reinstall for another 30 days, if you need to.
 
 I haven't tried that myself, but I'm almost 100% certain it's not that 
 simple.
 
 - Darcy
 -
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Brooklyn, NY
 
 
 
 
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread A-NO-NE Music

dhbailey / 05.3.10 / 06:59 AM wrote:

One thought occurs, which might actually be a good business venture to 
begin:  Somebody could establish a company whose sole purpose is to 
issue validation or authentication codes for software, all independent 
of the original publishers of those applications.

I was not going to pitch in this thread, but now I have to.
There has been such business, a company called PACE.  If I am not
mistaken, Finale used to use PACE floppy disk auth.

PACE http://www.paceap.com/ has been supplying anti piracy engine for
many, many DAW applications for decades.  Steinburg, Waves, BombFactory
to name a few.  It is even easier to count who _left_ PACE.  MOTU did
(but came back with MachFive and MX4).  Peak and Logic did, too.

Here is the problem with such business.  PACE provides API/lib, which
hacks deep inside of the host code so altering its code makes app
malfunction.  The problem is they don't take any responsibility how the
host app implement it.  And their customer is not the end user but the
app vendor.  If we are in trouble, they don't care for us.  I was there.

Here is an example.
Take a non PACE DAW app.  You use PACE enabled plug-in.  If the timing of
memory return is a hair off, the app crashes, and is caused by PACE.

In such event, this is what happens:
- PACE claims the app vendor never asked for help to solve the problem so
they can't do anything about it, and also claims PACE provided more than
enough API/documentation so the app vendor should be able to handle the
problem in many ways.
- The app vendor claims they paid big money to PACE so they don't want to
worry about anti piracy issue.

P.S. When Peak was the only OSX DAW app a few years back, its auth all
the sudden died on me _on the stage_ of the Umbria Jazz Festival.  Of
course I left my auth at hotel!  I cursed Peak and I trashed it.  Back
then, Peak3 sounded terrible anyway.  I hear version 4 got better but I
aint going there again.

-- 

- Hiro

Hiroaki Honshuku, A-NO-NE Music, Boston, MA
http://a-no-ne.com http://anonemusic.com


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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

Fair enough, but wasn't it you who was complaining about EPS not 
working? There isn't really any point in fixing it, is there,since you 
won't be buying it?

Seriously, it is your choice, but I really don't think you have any hope 
that MM is going to change it.

I must admit that I really don't see much of a risk here. At least not 
more of a risk than with any other software. Chances are that even if 
there wasn't an authentication scheme, if MM goes out of business, and 
you computer fails, a new computer may not be able to run the software 
anyway. Happened to me with Waveburner (thanks Apple!). The situation 
was actually pretty similar.

Noone will ever guarantee you that software x will run on a new machine 
in x years.

For some reason I can actually understand MM. I have recently seen 
several pirated copies of Finale in use, all of them pre-Authentication. 
I have not seen a single pirated OS X installation of Finale. Makes me 
wonder.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like the idea of copyprotection in the first 
place. However, I have to agree with others that the escrow system is 
something no software company with any sense in their brains will ever 
agree to.

I really think it's a live with it or don't situation. Noone is forcing 
you to upgrade. But I wouldn't be surprised if you will eventually (when 
they fix EPS?).

The idea of asking other people not to upgrade is ridiculous. It's like 
not filling petrol to boycott oil companies. You are hurting yourself if 
anyone.

Johannes
d. collins schrieb:
Johannes Gebauer écrit:
(I am not really taking sides though, personally I was annoyed by the 
copyprotection, but on the other hand I do find it a little silly to 
claim that you could loose everything tomorrow. Yes, MM could be out 
of business tomorrow, but my computer would also have to die before I 
loose anything. Not impossible, but together a risk I am prepared to 
take.)

It's not a question of loosing files, but of no longer being able to 
edit them. So you're ready to take the risk of not being able to 
reinstall your copy of Finale and making changes in any of your files. 
I'm not.

Dennis
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

From: d. collins [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

 So you're ready to take the risk of not being able to reinstall your 
 copy of Finale and making changes in any of your files. I'm not.
 

Ah, but you have no choice. Even without authentication you are very much 
subject to that risk. This is the onerous catch-22 we live with in the computer 
world, and it is one of the reasons I long ago gave up on the fight against 
authentication as jousting at windmills.

The problem is that as computers change, your non-authenticated version of 
Finale eventually will no longer work. For Mac users this is effectively 
already the case. For Windows users the day is coming. If it isn't 64-bit 
Windows, it will be Longhorn. If it isn't Longhorn, it will be some future 
post-Longhorn version. If it isn't those, it will be some driver change, or 
some midi or audio interface change. Does the 16-bit WinFin 2.x version still 
run on Windows XP? Can you even install it on your current computer? (It was 
distributed on diskettes that must have been sitting on a shelf for at least a 
decade. Do they still work, even if you have a drive that will read them?)

The fact is, the originally planned changes for Longhorn could possibly have 
caused a substantial percentage of software obsolescence as compared with that 
MacOS X caused for MacOS Classic users.

So which happens first? Does MM vanish or does your next computer no longer run 
your old version? One or the other (or both) is going to happen. There is no 
escape, and authentication is merely one additional risk factor. A migration 
path is essential. And expect not to be able to edit your files after 10-15 
years in any case, at least not without signficant rework.




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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Dennis Bathory-Kitsz

At 05:08 PM 3/10/05 +, Robert Patterson wrote:
The problem is that as computers change, your 
non-authenticated version of Finale eventually will 
no longer work.

Put this comment before archivists who meticulously maintain old equipment
and software in order to have access to important material.

Perhaps it's because I worked as a documents librarian in my early years
that I understand how sickening it is to watch, in the name of misplaced
commerce, history slowly but surely being locked away in a software prison.
Imagine if Mozart's manuscripts were locked up in Finale 1790, computer
intact and functioning, but FabrikMuzik! long gone.

Dennis



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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Andrew Stiller

On Mar 9, 2005, at 2:51 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
Dennis [is] only talking about the fact that
everyone who upgrades their data to the authenticated version is
flying without a parachute.
I fly without a parachute all the time. In fact, I've never flown 
*with* a parachute, and wouldn't know how to use one were it provided.

Long ago, Nora Ephron defined a distinction between Basic Worry and 
Baroque Worry. Worrying about a disastrous hypothetical combination of 
corporate, backup, and hard-drive failures is definitely Baroque.

Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

With this approach I really don't see your problem: If all you want is 
to be sure that Finale will always run on your existing machinery, then 
you have that already. When you authorize Finale you get send an 
authorization code. This code will work should you ever need to 
reauthorize your copy _on the same computer_. On the Mac it is glued to 
the Ethernet address. Unless you change your Ethernet card the 
authorization code will remain the same, even if you change the HD or 
any other component. I am not sure what it is glued to on the PC side, 
but you can probably find that out from MM.

So even if MM ceases to exist you can reenter your code as long as you 
are running on the same machine.

Johannes
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz schrieb:
At 05:08 PM 3/10/05 +, Robert Patterson wrote:
The problem is that as computers change, your 
non-authenticated version of Finale eventually will 
no longer work.

Put this comment before archivists who meticulously maintain old equipment
and software in order to have access to important material.
Perhaps it's because I worked as a documents librarian in my early years
that I understand how sickening it is to watch, in the name of misplaced
commerce, history slowly but surely being locked away in a software prison.
Imagine if Mozart's manuscripts were locked up in Finale 1790, computer
intact and functioning, but FabrikMuzik! long gone.
Dennis

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

Noone will ever guarantee you that software x will run on a new 
machine in x years.

We're also talking about the same machine, after a HD crash, for instance.
That is already no problem, at least on the Mac. I know because I had 
that problem (well not a crash, but I changed my HD, and the same 
authorization still worked).

As for the PC side, I am not sure. It'S not impossible that they are 
using the HD serial.

Johannes
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

At 3/10/2005 11:17 AM, Robert Patterson wrote:
What we are talking about here is emergency migration in the event of MM's
demise. In that case, it would be acceptable to have a spare computer that
you could reinstall the OS and/or reformat the drive so as to get the
additional 30 days.
Oh, perfect reason to buy VMWare.
You can create as many additional machines as you want, on your current 
machine . . .

Phil Daley   AutoDesk 
http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

At 3/10/2005 12:06 PM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:
Noone will ever guarantee you that software x will run on a new machine
in x years.
Absolutely, but Microsoft has been far ahead of Apple in that regards.
I still run simple MSDOS3 (I don't remember the date, maybe 1985?) software 
on my WinXP system.

I also run Alpha4 (Win3  version), a fairly good database product, on Win2K.
I also run FinaleV3 on both Win2K and WinXP.
Does FinaleV3 run on any current MacOS?
Phil Daley   AutoDesk 
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

At 3/10/2005 12:08 PM, Robert Patterson wrote:
The problem is that as computers change, your non-authenticated version of
Finale eventually will no longer work. For Mac users this is effectively
already the case. For Windows users the day is coming. If it isn't 64-bit
Windows, it will be Longhorn. If it isn't Longhorn, it will be some future
post-Longhorn version. If it isn't those, it will be some driver change, or
some midi or audio interface change. Does the 16-bit WinFin 2.x version
still run on Windows XP? Can you even install it on your current computer?
(It was distributed on diskettes that must have been sitting on a shelf for
at least a decade. Do they still work, even if you have a drive that will
read them?)
Aha.  Good idea. I know that V3 works.  I have the V2 disks.  I will try an 
install and send a report.

The only problem with V3 is the long file name issue.  You have to be able 
to interpret the C:\progra~1\finale~1\ mozart~1.mus filenames.

Most importantly: Playback still works.  That is a huge hardware 
compatibility issue that MS dealt with.

The fact is, the originally planned changes for Longhorn could possibly have
caused a substantial percentage of software obsolescence as compared with
that MacOS X caused for MacOS Classic users.
I have to agree.  But that is from preliminary reports.  MS has never done 
that in the past.

So which happens first? Does MM vanish or does your next computer no longer
run your old version? One or the other (or both) is going to happen. There
is no escape, and authentication is merely one additional risk factor. A
migration path is essential. And expect not to be able to edit your files
after 10-15 years in any case, at least not without signficant rework.
Actually, you just save your old computers.
I have an Apple][e in the attic.  I pulled it out the other day to print 
out my house building costs that I had saved in an Apple database.

I have a MacSE OS6 stored away.  I haven't used it in the last year.
I also have an old computer running Win98 just to be able to scan images 
on.  My $98 scanner with some kind of fake parallel SCSI ports doesn't work 
on Win2K.  So I just keep the old computer around to scan paper docs ;-)

Phil Daley   AutoDesk 
http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

d. collins wrote:
Christopher Smith écrit:
Well, strictly speaking, you can install 2004 and use it for 30 days 
before it refuses to run. That should give you enough time to call up, 
edit, and print any of your files.

I don't know how closely you've been following this thread, but the 
discussion is precisely about the day where you can no longer call up 
because no-one will be answering. Then what do you do?

When he said call up he really meant open up -- those first 30 days 
of use didn't require you to call anybody.

--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

Darcy James Argue wrote:
I think Chris meant call up in the sense of call up your files (i.e, 
open your files), not call up Coda.

Of course, your point about What do you do when your 30 days are up? 
remains.

uninstall it and reinstall it, while looking around for a suitable 
alternative program to use for computer notation.

--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 9 Mar 2005 at 23:10, Robert Patterson wrote:

 I don't think MM's corporate memory extends back to Fin2.6.3 days,
 even if one or two old-timers may still be there that were there then.
 There have been two major transformations in the product as well as at
 least two major transformations in the company. I think these have had
 much more impact on their ability to support Fin2.6.3 than any OS
 changes. Plus, OS changes happen on all platforms. I wonder if the old
 16-bit FinWin 2.x version will run on WinXP.

I can't answer your question (though I guess I could try installing 
WinFin 2.01 on Win2K, but don't really have the interest right now), 
but I will say that MM is not the only company to have this kind of 
problem. Microsoft now hires an outside individual who does data 
recovery on Jet database files whenever they need to know the 
internals of the Jet file format, because the institutional knowledge 
of how Jet and its files work has evaporated over the years. 

MS also lost the source code for some early versions of DOS, so even 
companies that are good at maintaining compatibility (which MS 
manifestly is, probably moreso than any other major software vendor) 
can have problems like this.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Steve Gibons

actually, I think once the 30 days are up uninstalling won't make a 
difference on the mac side. The trail the first install leaves will 
still be there.

I've been following this thread with interest and it makes me wonder, 
are any of the participants aware of how trivial it is to subvert the 
CP for finale?
(I guess this would be a good place to point out here that I *am* a 
registered owner of finale)

steve
On Mar 10, 2005, at 1:53 PM, dhbailey wrote:
Darcy James Argue wrote:
I think Chris meant call up in the sense of call up your files 
(i.e, open your files), not call up Coda.
Of course, your point about What do you do when your 30 days are 
up? remains.
uninstall it and reinstall it, while looking around for a suitable 
alternative program to use for computer notation.

--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 8:28, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:

 Linda Worsley makes my day. Geeze the way things are going in the
 world I may have to gather wood to burn for cooking and heating, buy a
 horse to take me around, plant my own garden and keep a root cellar,
 etc. To which I can only answer, Uh-oh. I cook with wood, have three
 horses, plant my own garden, and keep a root cellar. On a more serious
 note, this anecdote: I purchased Finale ten year ago after returning
 from living in Europe, the first month of which was in Cologne. But I
 didn't get to see Cologne because I spent the whole month at Clarence
 Barlow's kitchen table inking parts to a long orchestral score. My
 wife said, That's it! This is [EMAIL PROTECTED] ridiculous! First thing we 
 do
 when we get back is put all this ^#$*#^* on

I've been thinking about productivity the last week or so, as I make 
parts for myself to play basso continuo in Couperin and Charpentier 
Lessons of Tenebre (such glorious music!). I've been using 3 music 
stands in rehearsals and playing from score, because I desparately 
need to know what the voices are doing to function. For the Couperin, 
I just got copies of my viol teacher's own bass parts, which have 
excellent cues in them, but which lack figures. ARRGGHH!!! Figures 
tell me so much about the harmony and how to play the line! 

The Charpentier I'm still doing myself in Finale, but figured bass is 
a real pain. I may just put in the notes alone and put in the figures 
by hand.

I remember the days when I was involved with a one-week band camp 
where I'd sit down at the piano with manuscript paper at 10am and 
sketch out a continuity score, then fill in the harmonies, then cue 
in the orchestration (bandstration?), then write the parts (in 
pencil) direct from this short score (usually 3 or 4 systems), then 
photocopy them to be passed out and read at a 1:30pm rehearsal in 
preparation for a 7pm performance. I'm not sure if I can still do 
that, but it's definitely faster than Finale would be. Are the 
results as good looking? Certainly not. Are they as well proofread? 
Not at all. Are they as re-usable? Absolutely not.

But they got the job done quite admirably -- they were certainly good 
enough.

I have to keep remembering that as I agonize over my Charpentier bass 
part.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 10:25, Christopher Smith wrote:

 The software works for 30 days without any 
 contact with MakeMusic. When the thirty days are up, delete it and
 reinstall for another 30 days, if you need to. Probably after Finale
 goes under you will be creating your new works on some other software,
 so this should permit you to re-print and edit your old files.

If it allows you to uninstall and re-install and end up with 30 more 
days, it certainly makes a complete mockery of the idea of copy 
protection of any kind whatsoever. I have never encountered any 
software with an expiring trial period that does not write data to 
the system to prevent more than one trial period. I've seen it even 
with $20 software, let alone software that retails for hundreds of 
dollars.

Now, on Windows XP, it might be possible to save a restore point, 
install Finale, and after the 30 days run out, revert to the restore 
point and re-install. But that's an awful lot of work (and only 
relevant to one OS version), though it might be worth it to keep 
editing your files in the dark days after MakeMusic has gone under.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

Phil Daley schrieb:
Does FinaleV3 run on any current MacOS?
I haven't tried it, but I am pretty sure it will run just fine under 
Classic. MIDI won't work, but that probably doesn't work under XP 
either, does it?

The real problem would be to get it installed, since it came on 
Floppies, and no Mac these days has a floppy drive.

Johannes
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 18:06, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 Don't get me wrong, I don't like the idea of copyprotection in the
 first place. However, I have to agree with others that the escrow
 system is something no software company with any sense in their brains
 will ever agree to.

I don't see the logic there. Dennis said in his long message that one 
of the problems of the authentication scheme is that all the benefit 
goes to MakeMusic and all of the headaches to the legitimate, 
licensed users. Why would a well-intentioned company be uninterested 
in remedying that imbalance?

Secondly, this kind of thing is much more important for small, niche 
software markets where the companies creating the software are 
already in a precarious position (Coda/MakeMusic has always seemed to 
me to be on the brink of bankruptcy, based on all the financials I've 
ever seen) than it is for large companies in mainstream markets. By 
implementing key escrow, MM would be encouraging long-term commitment 
to its products, because the viability of the manufacturer becomes 
less of a worry. 

It would also be an advantage over Sibelius!

[]

 The idea of asking other people not to upgrade is ridiculous. It's
 like not filling petrol to boycott oil companies. You are hurting
 yourself if anyone.

Well, I will say this: a boycott is of no value if you don't tell the 
company you're boycotting. It would do no good for me to tell MM that 
I'm boycotting them, as I wouldn't have bought either of the last two 
versions of Finale, anyway (I'm not a knee-jerk upgrader). But 
sometime in the next 2 or 3 versions we will get to the point where I 
would normally upgrade (when the accumulated improvements become 
significant enough to attract my $$$) but will choose not to. At that 
point, I will inform MM that I'm not upgrading because of the lack of 
key escrow.

But I'm not the kind of Finale user who has any value in a boycott. 
It's the people who make their living with Finale and who are 
basically forced to upgrade every year who are the ones who would 
have value in withholding their upgrade $$$.

But it seems to me from what's been said on this list that most of 
those are sheep who are meekly accept what's shoved down their 
throats and haven't the backbone to give up short-term satisfaction 
in order to accomplish crucial long-term goals.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

At 3/10/2005 03:24 PM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:
Phil Daley schrieb:
 Does FinaleV3 run on any current MacOS?

I haven't tried it, but I am pretty sure it will run just fine under
Classic. MIDI won't work, but that probably doesn't work under XP
either, does it?
I am not sure what that means.
Is MIDI playback through the sound card?
Or input through an external keyboard?
The real problem would be to get it installed, since it came on
Floppies, and no Mac these days has a floppy drive.
Of course, they are not needed ;-)
Just like BillG 640KB is enough for everybody.
Phil Daley   AutoDesk 
http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 17:08, Robert Patterson wrote:

[]

 The problem is that as computers change, your non-authenticated
 version of Finale eventually will no longer work. For Mac users this
 is effectively already the case. For Windows users the day is coming.
 If it isn't 64-bit Windows, it will be Longhorn. If it isn't Longhorn,
 it will be some future post-Longhorn version. . . .

Well, if history is any guide, THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

 . . . If it isn't those, it
 will be some driver change, or some midi or audio interface change.

Those may reduce the functionality of Finale as a sequencer but they 
would not prevent using Finale to edit files.

 Does the 16-bit WinFin 2.x version still run on Windows XP? Can you
 even install it on your current c omputer? (It was distributed on
 diskettes that must have been sitting on a shelf for at least a
 decade. Do they still work, even if you have a drive that will read
 them?)

Your comments here just motivated me to try, but I just realized that 
before I moved in 2000, I trashed the old Finale 2.01 disks/manuals.

My bet is that it would work. It would have problems, yes, just as it 
had with Windows 3.1 (it was designed for Win3.0, before the 
incorporation of TrueType fonts into Windows), but my bet is that it 
would work just fine insofar as allowing you to open, edit and print 
files.

 The fact is, the originally planned changes for Longhorn could
 possibly have caused a substantial percentage of software obsolescence
 as compared with that MacOS X caused for MacOS Classic users.

I strongly doubt this. Microsoft has *never* introduced a version of 
Windows that causes large numbers of software applications to fail to 
work. Yes, it sometimes breaks individual features, but most often 
those happen because the applications have been improperly 
programmed, rather than using the documented APIs. WordPerfect 6.0's 
problems on Win95 were all due to WP's non-standard programming 
practices. Had they followed best practices, their software would 
have run without problems (of course, it did run, and in a perfectly 
usable state -- it just had a number of small inconsistencies, like 
the weird minimize/maximize button problem).

You might be tempted to point to WinXP SP2 as having broken 
applications, but it only broke them in the sense that the default 
installation (with no tweaking of the new firewall's default 
settings) would break the app. I know of no software that could not 
be made to run under WinXP SP2 by altering the default configuration.

This is typical of Microsoft. They really do care about backward 
compatibility, and engineer it into all of their products. As I said 
yesterday, I have a client running an dBase II app compiled in 1983 
under WinXP.

 So which happens first? Does MM vanish or does your next computer no
 longer run your old version? One or the other (or both) is going to
 happen. There is no escape, and authentication is merely one
 additional risk factor. A migration path is essential. And expect not
 to be able to edit your files after 10-15 years in any case, at least
 not without signficant rework.

If history is any guide, Microsoft's OS's will support your app for 
15-20 years (maybe longer -- we can't say because we haven't gotten 
there yet!).

And, of course, if a new version of Windows breaks your old software, 
then you simply maintain a computer with an older version of Windows 
just for using that old software. 

The key escrow idea makes that possible in the event of MM's demise.

The lack of it means your data files are lost, completely 
inaccessible to you.

-- 
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 18:43, d. collins wrote:

 The software should continue to run on the OS's it was made for. In
 other words, if ten years from now I want to reinstall 2004 (and the
 problems going from one version to another are such that this might be
 necessary even if I do have further versions), it should work on any
 computer running one of the present OS's.

Well, keep in mind that if you choose WinXP or later, Microsoft may 
or may not give you an authentication key.

Keep those Win2K installation disks!

-- 
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Mark D Lew

On Mar 10, 2005, at 12:24 PM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:
The real problem would be to get it installed, since it came on 
Floppies, and no Mac these days has a floppy drive.
I've got an external floppy drive that plugs into my USB port.  I even 
use it occasionally.

mdl
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 19:27, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

  Noone will ever guarantee you that software x will run on a new
  machine in x years.
  
  We're also talking about the same machine, after a HD crash, for
  instance.
 
 That is already no problem, at least on the Mac. I know because I had
 that problem (well not a crash, but I changed my HD, and the same
 authorization still worked).
 
 As for the PC side, I am not sure. It'S not impossible that they are
 using the HD serial.

I don't know the details of MM's authentication scheme.

But Microsoft uses an authentication scheme that is keyed to a 
combination of certain hardware devices. You can invalidate your 
authentication key by installing additional hardware on your PC 
(though for all practical purposes, it's only going to happen if 
you've cumulatively made more than one hardware change to your 
configuration -- i.e., a single hardware change may trigger it, but 
it's only going to happen if you already installed at least one other 
different hardware device).

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 12:05, Brad Beyenhof wrote:

 The recommendation of VMware was a good one for Windows users. VMware
 allows you to create an endless supply of throwaway virtual machines
 on which you can continue to reinstall the OS from scratch every 30
 days. Of course, all you'll need to install on the virtual machine
 will be the OS and Finale, so it won't take near as long as a
 traditional reformat/reinstall.

If you had it on a separate hard drive partition, you could image it 
and restore the image.

This looks pretty viable, actually, but it is dependent on 3rd-party 
software (VMWare) that is rather pricey ($200), and that is itself 
somewhat precarious, being a one-product company (though a division 
of a larger one). 

Assuming VMWare is still around when MM goes under seems to me to be 
just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The only way you can really be certain you can keep a working version 
of Finale in the event of the demise of MM is to have:

1. your last-purchased version of Finale (assuming you only need the 
one).

2. the OS installation disk for the latest version of the OS on which 
your #1 version of Finale runs on.

3. a machine on which you are guaranteed to be able to install both 
the OS and Finale.

The easiest way to accomplish this is simply to keep a dedicated PC, 
fully set up. You could add:

4. a copy of VMWare that runs on the OS in #3.

and that would make it possible to circumvent the 30-day expiration, 
but if you've got a PC that is in running order with an authenticated 
version of Finale already installed, you don't really need that!

So, I don't really see that VMWare adds much value to the equation.

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 21:24, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 Phil Daley schrieb:
  Does FinaleV3 run on any current MacOS?
 
 I haven't tried it, but I am pretty sure it will run just fine under
 Classic. MIDI won't work, but that probably doesn't work under XP
 either, does it?

I can't say for certain, but it's actually quite likely to work, 
because WinFin3.x was a 16-bit program.

When the first 32-bit version of WinFin came out (97), MIDI was 
supported on NT-based Windows (only NT 4 at the time) only in the 16-
bit version (at that time, Coda was providing both 32-bit and 16-bit 
versions of Finale on the same installation disk).

The reason 16-bit worked and not 32-bit was because 16-bit 
applications bypass the hardware abstraction layers underlying the 32-
bit Windows API. Getting MIDI to work in NT was a project that Coda 
had substantial difficulty with because of the translation problems.

So, I think your assumptions are actually quite wrong.

Microsoft has always provided 16-bit compatibility in all its 32-bit 
Windows versions (Win9x was actually a hybrid, support the Win32 API, 
but with significant 16-bit components within the OS itself). I have 
never run onto a 16-bit Windows program that does not work just fine 
on NT-based Windows (NT 4, Win2K, WinXP). 

And that includes MIDI.

 The real problem would be to get it installed, since it came on 
 Floppies, and no Mac these days has a floppy drive.

If you can get access to a floppy drive, you could copy them to a CD 
and surely use that for installation.

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread A-NO-NE Music

David W. Fenton / 05.3.10 / 03:50 PM wrote:

Well, keep in mind that if you choose WinXP or later, Microsoft may 
or may not give you an authentication key.

Keep those Win2K installation disks!

I have an OT question.
How many machines can one XP installer install?

I am still staying with Win2KSP4 on my 3 PCs because I just can't justify
the cost of XP.  My Win2K copy was legal copy of MSDN as well as Office.
 XP is not included with MSDN.

On top this, unlike OSX and other Unix flavored OSes, Windows is still
not true multi lang (MS sells Far East DLL package separately, and no,
turning your system locale won't turn into true multi lang), I have to
have native Japanese version, while Micro$haft _prohibits_ US retailer to
sell non US Windows.  They do everything, y'know.

If I purchase single WinXP-JP and OfficeXP-JP package here in US, it will
cost me $1,400 (MacOSX 5 license is only $180!!).  I just found out one
of my friend is coming from Japan in a few weeks.  He can bring me XP-JP
and Office-JP, but it still cost me about $1,000.  There is no such thing
as OEM version in Japan.

If I can install only one of three machines I have, I just can't justify
this cost, and will stay with W2K for ever.  Any info is appreciated.

-- 

- Hiro

Hiroaki Honshuku, A-NO-NE Music, Boston, MA
http://a-no-ne.com http://anonemusic.com



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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

From: David W. Fenton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

 THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

I wish I had a nickel for every time this turned out to be wrong in the 
computer business.

 
 Your comments here just motivated me to try, but I just realized that 
 before I moved in 2000, I trashed the old Finale 2.01 disks/manuals.


Hence, in fact, you personally *cannot* install it on a new computer, although 
perhaps you could copy an existing install. If you had WinFin2.01 files you 
would essentially be SOL, at least without re-editing in a later Finale version.

 I strongly doubt this. Microsoft has *never* introduced a version of 
 Windows that causes large numbers of software applications to fail to 
 work.

Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Some day MS will 
introduce exactly what you described. Or else they will go out of business or 
morph into something else. Forever is a very long time, and 10-15 years in the 
computer business is nearly as long as forever. In fact, both the original 
feature-set of Longhorn and 64-bit Itanium Windows (now both apparently dead or 
on hiatus) contained the first rumbling threats of large-scale software 
obsolescence. That is, if you believe the trade rags.

 WordPerfect 6.0's 
 problems on Win95 were all due to WP's non-standard programming 
 practices.

Were Finale's early Windows practices best practices? I have no idea. If they 
weren't then you would be screwed. There is no going back an fixing a 15-yr-old 
software version.




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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 23:16, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 David W. Fenton schrieb:
  On 10 Mar 2005 at 18:06, Johannes Gebauer wrote:
  
 Don't get me wrong, I don't like the idea of copyprotection in the
 first place. However, I have to agree with others that the escrow
 system is something no software company with any sense in their
 brains will ever agree to.
  
  I don't see the logic there. Dennis said in his long message that
  one of the problems of the authentication scheme is that all the
  benefit goes to MakeMusic and all of the headaches to the
  legitimate, licensed users. Why would a well-intentioned company be
  uninterested in remedying that imbalance?
 
 Because they don't want the headaches? Seems perfectly sensible from
 their point of view...

*What* headache?

Is it a headache for an office building to have a master key?

-- 
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 16:34, A-NO-NE Music wrote:

 David W. Fenton / 05.3.10 / 03:50 PM wrote:
 
 Well, keep in mind that if you choose WinXP or later, Microsoft may
 or may not give you an authentication key.
 
 Keep those Win2K installation disks!
 
 I have an OT question.
 How many machines can one XP installer install?

Depends on whether it's a retail disk or an Enterprise disk (what you
get with an Open License plan). The latter can install on anything
without authentication.

The former can install on any number of PCs, but can be authenticated
on only one PC.

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread A-NO-NE Music

David W. Fenton / 05.3.10 / 05:24 PM wrote:

The former can install on any number of PCs, but can be authenticated
on only one PC.


Sorry for a dumb question but what does this mean?
Would un-authed XP bite me?


-- 

- Hiro

Hiroaki Honshuku, A-NO-NE Music, Boston, MA
http://a-no-ne.com http://anonemusic.com


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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 21:55, Robert Patterson wrote:

 From: David W. Fenton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
  THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
 
 I wish I had a nickel for every time this turned out to be wrong in
 the computer business.

You cut out the first half of my sentence, which read:

  Well, if history is any guide, THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

IF, IF, IF.

History may *not* turn out to repeat itself. Microsoft may suddenly 
stop trying to insure backward compatibility. But there is no basis 
whatsoever to state, as you did, that:

  For Windows users the day is coming.

Meaning, the day when Finale won't run on the current version of 
Windows. So far as we know, that day has not yet arrived, and:

  if history is any guide, THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

Speculation in the other direction is contrary to all the indications 
that we have available to us in regard to how Microsoft designs its 
operating systems.

  Your comments here just motivated me to try, but I just realized
  that before I moved in 2000, I trashed the old Finale 2.01
  disks/manuals.
 
 Hence, in fact, you personally *cannot* install it on a new computer,

Well, no, but my lack of installation disks has nothing to do with 
whether not Finale 2.01 would or would not install on Win2K.

 although perhaps you could copy an existing install. If you had
 WinFin2.01 files you would essentially be SOL, at least without
 re-editing in a later Finale version.

I don't have an installation of 2.01, as it would be completely 
useless to me, as I have converted all my files to each successive 
version of Finale that I've used (3.52, 97, 2K3). I didn't discard 
the disks until I no longer had any files in that format (when I did 
discard them, in 2000, it had been quite a long time since I'd had 
any 2.01 files, having converted everything first to 3.52, and then 
to 97).

  I strongly doubt this. Microsoft has *never* introduced a version of
  Windows that causes large numbers of software applications to fail
  to work.
 
 Past performance is not indicative of future returns. . . .

But it's a strong counter to your assertion of certainty.

It's *possible*, but there is absolutely no evidence available to 
suggest that it is likely, let alone certain, as you assert.

 . . . Some day MS will
 introduce exactly what you described. Or else they will go out of
 business or morph into something else. . ..

I did not say that MS will *never* introduce a version of Windows 
that breaks large numbers of apps, only that they had never done so 
thus far.

That's all the evidence we have to go on.

 . . . Forever is a very long time,
 and 10-15 years in the computer business is nearly as long as forever.

I wonder which side of this are you arguing, since this is a point 
that is in *my* favor. Applications compiled in 1983 can still run on 
versions of Windows released in late 2001. That's *18 years*, which 
your own formulation would cast as nearly as long as forever.

 In fact, both the original feature-set of Longhorn and 64-bit Itanium
 Windows (now both apparently dead or on hiatus) contained the first
 rumbling threats of large-scale software obsolescence. That is, if you
 believe the trade rags.

We've heard it before.

But in most cases, what ended up happening was that some 
functionality was reduced in any packages that were broken by the 
new Windows versions, not completely crippled or unable to run.

Given that Coda switched to using Microsoft development tools around 
the time of WinFin97, I'm pretty certain that their apps are pretty 
conformant to Microsoft standards, which makes it very unlikely that 
future versions of Windows will break older Win32 versions.

  WordPerfect 6.0's 
  problems on Win95 were all due to WP's non-standard programming
  practices.
 
 Were Finale's early Windows practices best practices? I have no
 idea. If they weren't then you would be screwed. There is no going
 back an fixing a 15-yr-old software version.

I don't know. The UI was certainly not best practices but I can't 
say about their programming practices.

And if they weren't, that doesn't necessarily mean that the software 
would fail, or even have problems that were anything other than 
annoyances (as was the case with WP6, where the problems outside the 
printing subsystem were strictly cosmetic).

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 10 Mar 2005 at 17:33, A-NO-NE Music wrote:

 David W. Fenton / 05.3.10 / 05:24 PM wrote:
 
 The former can install on any number of PCs, but can be
 authenticated on only one PC.
 
 Sorry for a dumb question but what does this mean?
 Would un-authed XP bite me?

Yes, it stops booting after N days.

-- 
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-10 Thread Owain Sutton


David W. Fenton wrote:
On 10 Mar 2005 at 17:33, A-NO-NE Music wrote:

David W. Fenton / 05.3.10 / 05:24 PM wrote:

The former can install on any number of PCs, but can be
authenticated on only one PC.
Sorry for a dumb question but what does this mean?
Would un-authed XP bite me?

Yes, it stops booting after N days.
It actually can be re-authenticated on new installations after a few 
weeks.  The whole XP authentication system may seem Orwellian, but 
actually they don't care about one extra install on a second PC, months 
after the original.  I've used the same product key on replacement 
computers, and not had any problem with authorisation.  What they care 
about somebody churning out hundreds of pirated installations.  And in 
any case, it's pretty much acknowledged that the XP authentication 
system is screwed, and everything has been hacked.
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes


From: David W. Fenton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 It's *possible*, but there is absolutely no evidence available to 
 suggest that it is likely, let alone certain, as you assert.
 

On the contrary, I speak with absolute certainty, because I have forever on my 
side. It is virtually certain that all currently running software will be 
unable to run, and all current software companies will be gone within, say, 4 
billion years. Personally, I would not be surprised to see at least the former 
(in large majority) within a couple of decades.




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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

At 01:33 AM 3/9/05 -0600, Noel Stoutenburg wrote:
I am aware of the language used on the Finale site, but it doesn't 
change the fact that you are not acquiring any ownership rights in the 
software, but agreeing to acquire a non-exclusive permission to use the 
property of MakeMusic! under the terms of limits and restrictions that 
are an inherent part of the license you agree to when you acquire the 
software.   Further, it gets a bit more complicated in that you do own 
the disk and jewel box it came in (in my case, since I got 2k5 as an 
upgrade), and any documentation, but not the software itself.

Noel, you're conflating two issues. Your argument is about language and
law. Whenever anyone buys a physical manifestation of 'intellectual
property', they purchase a certain body of rights, implicit and explicit.
That's IP101.

And that's not the issue. The issue is commerce and trade and, in this
case, the customer's victimization -- irrespective of the language and law
used to promulgate and disguise offensive tethering practices. Language and
law never relieve a company of ethical responsibility to the customer, and
ultimately companies who are unethical pay the price in bankruptcy.
Victimware is what you get when you buy tethered software, and no matter
how you spin the language or law, you and *your* intellectual property
become beholden to the corporate owners for the *rest of their life* (not
yours!) in a permanent digital serfdom. After that, your proverbial
property pooch is screwed.

If ending victimware production means Coda/MM has to negotiate better terms
-- or that the industry as a whole has to negotiate their way out of the
rights nightmare that *they themselves* have created due to laziness and
greed -- then they need to make that happen. They have not earned my
sympathy. Somehow other companies (and I list some of them in my article)
have managed to do what you claim is so difficult. It's about will, about
ethics, about a customer-centrism that has absented itself from much
corporate mentality, including Coda/MM's.

I have made a serious, fully functional proposal on how to solve the
victimware issue in a way that is independent of a corporation's vagaries
and that is within both contract and IP law and practice. Do you have a
serious, fully functional proposal that doesn't make you the ultimate
victim (when Coda/MM goes under, changes their terms, or ceases to support
your software)? (Just ask Graphire owners about that last one.)

Keep in mind that a contract may not be used to vacate guaranteed rights,
and less offensive practices have been subject to government regulation.
Regulation is the unwelcome last step, of course, but corporate
recalcitrance may require the language-and-law solution. Just consider
Coda/MM and its ilk to be corporate intellectual property polluters.
Polluters rarely clean up of their own accord, and tethered customers will
be the software industry's Love Canal.

Dennis


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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

At 06:07 AM 3/9/05 -0500, dhbailey wrote:
So what is your suggestion as to what sort of bargaining power we have 
to use against MakeMusic?

The operant really is we, isn't it?

What I hoped was that, as soon as the new scheme appeared, we Finale users
en masse would refuse to upgrade. Period. Forget the candy we're offered.
Recognize that in the long term, Coda/MM will be gone (or change their mind
about re-authorizing old versions in order to force upgrades), and when a
new authorization is needed, every single score done after 2K3 will be
unavailable in digital form. Then act immediately. Even skip a year's
upgrade. Post the reason (as I have) on the tools page of your business
websites. Refuse to consider tethered alternatives such as Sibelius.

Indeed, I was surprised at the tepid response by long-term Finale users to
Coda/MM's action. Sure, I've tried to make the point about tethered
software so often that people don't hear me anymore. I understand that.
Here comes Dennis with his victimware harangue again. And it's also hard to
convince Apple users, because they were introduced to locked products even
before there were DOS PCs. Further, because we're all working in
'intellectual property', we tread on unfirm ground when simultaneously
calling for Coda/MM to unlock their product while holding our own Finale
files close to the chest.

But it's not as if I'm saying that Coda/MM (or any company) isn't entitled
to keep their work from being stolen. That's their obligation to
stockholders and *us*, because it keeps them profitable and able to develop
the product further. Rather, I am calling for them to escrow (with an
independently contracted third party) a fail-safe mechanism that will be
activated when the company fails in business, support duties, or
authorization. This can be a skeleton key, keygen system, unlock patch,
special version, or server plugin that emulates their own authorization,
and is provided to all registered users when the fail-safe is triggered.
(Coda/MM is well placed to lead the industry because the locking software
was, they claim, developed in-house, and thus is not further tethered to a
PACE-style corporation.)

As usual, Dennis's long answer. The short answer on bargaining power: It's
not too late. Skip all further upgrades. Tell them why. The minute they
escrow a fail-safe mechanism is the minute I'll place my order. Anyone else?

Dennis


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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
[snip]
As usual, Dennis's long answer. The short answer on bargaining power: It's
not too late. Skip all further upgrades. Tell them why. The minute they
escrow a fail-safe mechanism is the minute I'll place my order. Anyone else?
And lose the improvements that make my income-generating work easier, 
faster, better?  It really is a quandary, as far as I'm concerned.  It's 
easy to skip upgrades which offer nothing more than eye-candy, but it's 
really hard to skip upgrades which offer major improvements in productivity.

It's also hard to skip upgrades when others with whom you work are 
upgrading -- since the earlier version can't work on files generated in 
a later version, how do you propose we solve that problem?

I think we all would love a version which is untethered, but in an 
industry where the catchphrase is we don't have to care, we own the 
stuff you want to use I truly can't see the bargaining power we have. 
MakeMusic is already generating the lion's share of its income from its 
SmartMusic product -- do you really think they care about us?

For an independent composer who can already do all that he/she wants in 
Finale 2003 (or whichever version was the one before the tethering came 
into being) resistance is easy -- there is no need to upgrade ever as 
long as your current version does all you'll ever need it to.

For those of us who serve others or who collaborate with others, the 
paying clients, it may not be that simple.

And don't suggest they go back to the insert the original installation 
CD anti-piracy concept -- they tried that back with Finale97 (or was it 
98) and very quickly scrapped that idea over the hue and cry of 
complaints.  And probably the expensive and time-consuming work on their 
part to ship out replacement original CDs when a licensed user had 
damaged their CD or the computer failed to recognize it.

I agree with the concept of a tethering-release mechanism being escrowed 
with some third-party, but whom would you suggest?  Which 
companies/organizations can you predict will still be together and able 
to handle the situation when MakeMusic goes out of business?  The whole 
problem with such escrows is that nobody can guarantee that ANY entity 
will be in existence at any future point so how would you suggest 
working around that potential problem?

--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

 Further, it gets a bit more complicated in that you do own 
 the disk and jewel box it came in

It's a minor point, but whenever I get one of those if you break the seal CD 
envelopes, I always just unstick the bottom of the envelope so that I haven't 
agreed to anything. Also, I like the seals, probably a by product of collecting 
things.

You can usually do this in such as way that you could reseal it and only 
forensics would be able to tell it had been opened. This probably says more 
about me than the legal issues involved :)

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

At 08:43 AM 3/9/05 -0500, dhbailey wrote:
And lose the improvements that make my income-generating work easier, 
faster, better?

Yes, even if for one year, in order to send the message.

It's also hard to skip upgrades when others with whom you work are 
upgrading -- since the earlier version can't work on files generated in 
a later version, how do you propose we solve that problem?

We. That means a concerted Finale user effort. No such economic action is
easy.

I think we all would love a version which is untethered, but in an 
industry where the catchphrase is we don't have to care, we own the 
stuff you want to use I truly can't see the bargaining power we have. 
MakeMusic is already generating the lion's share of its income from its 
SmartMusic product -- do you really think they care about us?

All companies care about negative publicity. Contact CNN's Lou Dobbs.
Convince him to do a story on the economic harm to consumers of tethered
programs, and show him the impact on a dedicated, professional user base
like us. (Having just helped arrange a story on his program about another
issue, I'm aware of his team's exploitation radar.)

For an independent composer who can already do all that he/she wants in 
Finale 2003 (or whichever version was the one before the tethering came 
into being) resistance is easy -- there is no need to upgrade ever as 
long as your current version does all you'll ever need it to.

If you mean me, I have numerous clients, thanks, and more income from
engraving scores (mostly new music) than composing. :) It isn't the raw
Finale productivity that makes me money, it's doing things very few others
do. (In terms of engraving product, there's really not much new, and they
still haven't fixed some of what we need.)

For those of us who serve others or who collaborate with others, the 
paying clients, it may not be that simple.

Maybe not, but that goes back to we. Those who always purchase the
latest, disregarding how their actions affect the future for other software
users, are hardest to convince. There will always be excuses to go the easy
way. But just how simple will it be when Coda/MM is gone or wants to force
upgrades by refusing to authorize old versions?

And don't suggest they go back to the insert the original installation 
CD anti-piracy concept -- they tried that back with Finale97 (or was it 
98)

Finale 98. The only upgrade I skipped in the 10 years from Finale 2.2 to
Finale 2003.

I agree with the concept of a tethering-release mechanism being escrowed 
with some third-party, but whom would you suggest?  Which 
companies/organizations can you predict will still be together and able 
to handle the situation when MakeMusic goes out of business?  The whole 
problem with such escrows is that nobody can guarantee that ANY entity 
will be in existence at any future point so how would you suggest 
working around that potential problem?

You want all the business details from me? I'm flattered.

Seriously, though, it's easy to pick arguments with any proposal. I think
my proposal is pretty solid, as there are already dozens of high-quality
software service organizations that could share such an effort. There are
also standards groups that get income from profit-making ventures, and
industry group collaborations (such as EPCGlobal working on RFID Gen2
tags). If I had a chunk of investment money, I'd start such an escrow
company myself. As to the technique for safekeeping, there's nothing like a
distributed server system with secure access methods ... but hey, we've got
one of those already, and I'm using it right now. :)

Dennis


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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

 victimization

 disguise offensive tethering practices.

Dennis

I quite like the scheme. I get to use Finale in my office and on my laptop. No 
messing about with CDs and when I've phoned because my hard drive has blown up 
or I've changed computer they're always very cool about it.

I don't feel like a victim, and I've benefitted greatly from the upgrades. Just 
thought I should put one on record as you're using fairly inflammatory language 
that certainly doesn't square with my experience.

In view of the current something for nothing climate where piracy is rife, 
MakeMusic! are being pretty good about authentication, they dropped the old 
unpopular one that required CD authentication.

However, iff MakeMusic! go down, I'll strap on a wooden leg and whack on an eye 
patch faster than your can sing Fifty barrels on a dead mans chest ... or 
whatever it was.

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-09 Thread A-NO-NE Music

dhbailey / 05.3.9 / 08:43 AM wrote:

And don't suggest they go back to the insert the original installation 
CD anti-piracy concept -- they tried that back with Finale97 (or was it 
98) and very quickly scrapped that idea over the hue and cry of 
complaints.


Both 97 and 98.  My 98 CD is lost during moving, and I am unable to open
98 files natively ever again :-(


-- 

- Hiro

Hiroaki Honshuku, A-NO-NE Music, Boston, MA
http://a-no-ne.com http://anonemusic.com


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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

At 02:24 PM 3/9/05 +, Simon Troup wrote:
I don't feel like a victim

Yet.

Just thought I should put one on record as you're 
using fairly inflammatory language that certainly doesn't square 
with my experience.

Yet.

In view of the current something for nothing climate where 
piracy is rife, MakeMusic! are being pretty good about authentication, 

The irony is that authentication prevents casual piracy while standing in
the way of legitimate users' future access to their labor.

However, iff MakeMusic! go down, I'll strap on a wooden leg and 
whack on an eye patch faster than your can sing Fifty barrels on a 
dead mans chest ... or whatever it was.

Indeed. :)

Companies tend to disappear quickly after denying they're in trouble.
LiveSynth Pro's product access went down before the company's demise was
announced, and while they were still accepting purchases. Luckily, I had
the product I'd paid for. Others weren't so fortunate. And this quote from
the Cakewalk forum: This gives a good reason why activation keys are a bad
idea... can you imaginge if Livesynth had been an activated product... how
many people would be knackered if they had to reinstall...

I hope Coda/MM will prepare for their users' needs in those last hours,
should the time come sooner rather than later.

Dennis


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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

 I hope Coda/MM will prepare for their users' needs in those last
 hours, should the time come sooner rather than later.

Did I miss something? Have you become the Nostradamus of the list or is this 
just speculation?

-- 
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Digital Music Art

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-09 Thread Noel Stoutenburg

Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
Noel, you're conflating two issues. Your argument is about language and
law. Whenever anyone buys a physical manifestation of 'intellectual
property', they purchase a certain body of rights, implicit and explicit.
That's IP101.
And that's not the issue. The issue is commerce and trade and, in this
case, the customer's victimization -- irrespective of the language and law
used to promulgate and disguise offensive tethering practices.

I don't agree that I'm conflating two issues. Language and law is the
issue here. You have not persuaded me of the validity of your claim
that the customer is being victimized. I am not victimized. I bought
a disk, and a book, and the rights, subject to limitations spelled out
in the end user license, to non-exclusive use of software. Among the
limitations I agreed to are the right to use the software on one machine
at a time. That is, and has been, in the plain language of the
agreement for as long as I've been using Finale. And I would guess, if
I wanted to pay the appropriate licensing fee, that I could purchase a
site license, under he terms of which there would be no restriction on
the number of machines upon which I would be permitted to install the
software, and thus, no need for the authentication scheme. I don't need
the ability to load the software on more than one machine at a time,
though, and so choose not to pay for that priviledge.

Frankly, though I do not mean to make any accusations in saying this, I
have heard the arguements you raise about victimware years ago, from a
person who was a first rate tech, and who did not hesitate for a moment
to copy an application off of a customer's drive if it was one he
wanted. He, too, railed against copy protection schemes.

Language and law never relieve a company of ethical responsibility to the customer, and ultimately companies who are unethical pay the price in bankruptcy.
Victimware is what you get when you buy tethered software, and no matter
how you spin the language or law, you and *your* intellectual property
become beholden to the corporate owners for the *rest of their life* (not
yours!) in a permanent digital serfdom.

Not necessarily so. As far as I can tell, the structure of a finale
data file is public knowledge, and there is nothing to prevent a person
with the proper skills form devising a notation package that would
properly render any Finale data file. Furthermore, since Finale Notepad
(and I refer here to the free download), which will presumably print out
any file that the full featured Finale of the same flavor will print out
means that even if, for some reason, you cannot edit a 2k5 file, you can
still print it out, disproving your claim that your intellectual
property is beholden to the corporate owners.

If ending victimware production means Coda/MM has to negotiate better terms
-- or that the industry as a whole has to negotiate their way out of the
rights nightmare that *they themselves* have created due to laziness and
greed -- then they need to make that happen. They have not earned my
sympathy. Somehow other companies (and I list some of them in my article)
have managed to do what you claim is so difficult. It's about will, about
ethics, about a customer-centrism that has absented itself from much
corporate mentality, including Coda/MM's.

Coda / MM need not negotiate better terms; I don't see the current
situation as a rights nightmare, I don't consider that I become a
victim if the licensee institutes a mechanism to enforce the
restrictions in the license agreement, and I haven't claimed (as far as
I recall) that the situation is difficult.

Do you have a serious, fully functional proposal that doesn't make you the ultimate
victim (when Coda/MM goes under, changes their terms, or ceases to support
your software)?

Sure. Make certain I have the latest verion of Notepad.
ns
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-09 Thread Jari Williamsson

Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
As usual, Dennis's long answer. 
And as usual, I don't understand what you're trying to say. Here's how I 
see it:

* No current user of the Fin2004/2005 seem to see the current CP system 
as a problem.

* If MM goes down, the clause #1 in the Fin2005 license agreement will 
fail (MM will not be able to provide you the necessary installs), which 
would make the license agreement void.

* Since Finale is popular software, there are also hacks available 
that go around the CP.

So the situation where the company goes down and the software can't be 
used will not happen as I see it.

Best regards,
Jari Williamsson
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-09 Thread Noel Stoutenburg

d. collins wrote:
I've purchased software and saw the company go out of business less 
then one year after that (and couldn't get a new key to reinstall it), 
so I certainly understand Dennis's concern. Several others suggested 
the recourse to hacks if MM happened to go down. But will they still 
be going around and easy to find five or ten years from now? I'm not 
so sure. I find legitimate the question of how be can be sure we'll be 
able to use our copy of Finale ten or even twenty years from now.
I, too, find Dennis's concerns about being able to use the software at 
some future point to be legitimate.  And I also concede, that based upon 
past experiences, it is not farfetched that we might all upgrade in 
August, and have MakeMusic completely fail in December.  But as far as 
Dennis' upgrade scheme is concerned, there is not complete certainty 
that in that event the Escrow company would still be around in December, 
either.  I purchased five years worth of unlimited service from an ISP 
five years ago, that went bankrupt a couple of months after I purchased 
the service; because of concerns at the time I made the purchase, I 
asked about continuity of the service if the company failed and I was 
assured that arrangements were in place to make sure I got the full term 
of service.  They were, but that company failed, too.

IN all honesty, given the installed base of files out there in Finale 
Formats, even if MakeMusic! were to completely dissapear tomorrow, I 
doubt that it would be more than a few months before someone else had a 
package out that would read files created with Finale.

ns
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-09 Thread Noel Stoutenburg

d. collins wrote:
In other words, you accept the fact that six months from now, or six 
years, or any time, you might no longer be able to use the copy of 
Finale you purchased
The real issue is not whether or not one can continue to use Finale; it 
is whether one can access the information in a given set of Finale 
files.   Neither the survival of Finale, nor the creation of an Escrowed 
untether is the critical step in the process here, in my opinion. The 
truly critical element here is for each user to make certain that every 
data file considered critical are stored in an accessible format.  To 
that end, I'd submit that ~.mus files are not as good a choice for long 
term archival purposes as ~.etf files.  And just from a practical 
standpoint, I'd guess that for each and every user, the likelihood of 
losing accessiblity to data files as a result of natural catastrophe, 
operator error, or of hardware, or of media failure is orders of 
magnitude higher than the likelihood of the failure of MakeMusic!  So 
instead of demanding a escrow scheme, it seems to me that a prudent user 
is going to have redundant copies of all data files, and software in 
diverse locations.  In my case, I have three copies of my critical ~.ETF 
files, in widely separated locations, and the archived old version 
distribution disks also distributed among those locations. 

ns


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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

Noel Stoutenburg wrote:
IN all honesty, given the installed base of files out there in Finale 
Formats, even if MakeMusic! were to completely dissapear tomorrow, I 
doubt that it would be more than a few months before someone else had a 
package out that would read files created with Finale.

Sibelius does that now.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-09 Thread Daniel Wolf

dhbailey wrote:
So what is your suggestion as to what sort of bargaining power we have 
to use against MakeMusic?  We could all switch to using Score, I 
guess.  Except that it wasn't a Mac program, as I recall, so Mac users 
would be out of luck, and none of us have machines that have DOS 
installed anymore, so the rest of us would be hard pressed to make 
that switch.

I am very interested in what sort of leverage we have to force 
MakeMusic to stop tethering their software.  I would love to have it 
untethered but I can't see what alternative I have, nor what power I 
have to make MakeMusic listen.  Their premier product these days is 
SmartMusic, so it seems they have already stopped caring very much 
about the Finale user.

Here's a suggestion:  if a group of power users (participants in this 
forum, for example), with a nice round membership number (100), were to 
publicly indicate via a petition that they would all refuse to buy the 
next upgrade unless (a) EPS/PDF were fixed, and (b) the protection 
scheme reverted to that used in Version X.   These are the days when 
internet actions and blogging have influence, and a bit of that 
influence potential could be well used. How would market analysts react, 
for example, if they were to learn that the top of the line product of a 
small commerical software firm was being boycotted by the top users 
pending changes (one of which suggests a fundamental flaw in the 
product)?  

Further, what is the advantage to Finale in having the same 
authentication scheme as its leading competitor?  If Finale is indeed 
losing ground to Sibelius, then a more flexible authentification scheme 
is one area where Finale can easily regain market share, and is totally 
in keeping with the more flexible character of Finale in general.

Daniel Wolf

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-09 Thread Robert Patterson

It astounds me that customers are so ready to defend their own abuse and 
 and incoveniencing by the companies they pay money to. It is one 
thing, as I do, to accept that the world is not perfect. That fighting 
an industry-wide rising tide of incovenience and abuse of customers is 
tantamount to fighting City Hall. You can't win, and the amount of 
inconvenience you suffer by resisting is almost always greater than that 
you suffer by acquiescing.

But it is truly amazing to watch the victims of said abuse actually 
justify it and defend their abusers.

As I've said before, my last line of defense is to archive in open 
formats like PDF. I only wish PDF had been available in 1990. Right now 
I am having to re-edit a piece from that era because Finale no longer 
fully supports its own past formats. What current Finale versions offer 
for Fin2.6.3 files is hardly better than what Sibelius offers.

This is because, while Makemusic has technically existed continuously 
 since 1988, it is in fact a completely different company, having gone 
through at least two complete ownership changes since then. The current 
company apparently knows almost nothing about the 2.6.3 format. Their 
Mac support people claim not to be able even to run Fin2.6.3 at all. 
(Heck, *I* can still do that.) If Finale 2.6.3 had required 
authentication, I feel virtually certain that the current company either 
would not or could not provide it now.

--
Robert Patterson
http://RobertGPatterson.com
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 8 Mar 2005 at 21:58, Noel Stoutenburg wrote:

 The flaw here, is that the phrases Commercial software is sold and
 legal purchaser implies that the user of a particular piece of
 commerical software has ownership rights in the software.  While it
 might be true for some programs, the fact is that with respect to
 Finale, these is not true statements.  A user of Finale acquires a
 non-exclusive, limited license to use the software entity under the
 terms of the license.  The fact is that the current authentication
 scheme used in FIN 2k4 and 2k5 is not a restriction the user's rights
 a purchaser, but enforcement of limitations on use that are part and
 parcel of the license to which the user has agreed.

Compared to previous licenses under which Finale was purchased, the 
current one is more restrictive.

And that's the basis of Dennis's refusal to buy it, since once he's 
used it, he's bound by the terms, which could mean eventual loss of 
his entire investment in Finale data.

It all seems completely rational to me.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

 But it is truly amazing to watch the victims of said abuse actually 
 justify it and defend their abusers.

That's just your perception.

Having marketed software that I've written myself I'm quite sympathetic about 
MakeMusic!s efforts to protect its investment, call it abuse if you like. 
Likewise, I don't like seeing someone download and use something for nothing 
that I've paid good money for out of the honesty of my heart. 

There's more going on here than blind devotion and the Stockholm Syndrome.

-- 
Simon Troup
Digital Music Art

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 9 Mar 2005 at 6:07, dhbailey wrote:

 We could all switch to using Score, I guess. 
   Except that it wasn't a Mac program, as I recall, so Mac users would
 be out of luck, and none of us have machines that have DOS installed
 anymore, so the rest of us would be hard pressed to make that switch.

You may not have DOS installed, but every version of Windows ever 
made has a command interpreter that is DOS compatible.

I have a client with WinXP Pro running a dBase II application 
compiled in 1983. We had to tweak some settings to get printing to 
work (and he had to keep his old LJII parallel port printer as well 
as his newer USB inkjet), but it works.

My bet is that Score would run just fine on any desktop version of 
Windows you chose, perhaps with some tweaking of the environment, but 
it would work, nonetheless.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 9 Mar 2005 at 9:40, A-NO-NE Music wrote:

 dhbailey / 05.3.9 / 08:43 AM wrote:
 
 And don't suggest they go back to the insert the original
 installation CD anti-piracy concept -- they tried that back with
 Finale97 (or was it 98) and very quickly scrapped that idea over the
 hue and cry of complaints.
 
 Both 97 and 98.  My 98 CD is lost during moving, and I am unable to
 open 98 files natively ever again :-(

Correction: It was 98 and *not* 97. 97 was the version I had until I 
purchased 2K3.

I seem to have a knack for upgrading just before MakeMusic implements 
some kind of copy protection.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 9 Mar 2005 at 15:34, Simon Troup wrote:

  I hope Coda/MM will prepare for their users' needs in those last
  hours, should the time come sooner rather than later.
 
 Did I miss something? Have you become the Nostradamus of the list or
 is this just speculation?

Would you advise a parent who supports a family of 6 to only consider 
purchasing life insurance the day before he or she dies?

The whole point of this is that it has to be in place *when the 
company is a going concern* or it's of no value when they go down the 
tubes.

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 9 Mar 2005 at 16:56, Jari Williamsson wrote:

 Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
 
  As usual, Dennis's long answer. 
 
 And as usual, I don't understand what you're trying to say. Here's how
 I see it:
 
 * No current user of the Fin2004/2005 seem to see the current CP
 system as a problem.

Non sequitur -- Dennis has *never* claimed it decreases the 
functionality of the software. He's only talking about the fact that 
everyone who upgrades their data to the authenticated version is 
flying without a parachute. As long as the airplane stays in the air 
with the engines running and doesn't catch fire, everything is great.

 * If MM goes down, the clause #1 in the Fin2005 license agreement will
 fail (MM will not be able to provide you the necessary installs),
 which would make the license agreement void.
 
 * Since Finale is popular software, there are also hacks available
 that go around the CP.

You're assuming the hacks will be there. . .

 So the situation where the company goes down and the software can't be
 used will not happen as I see it.

. . . Dennis is asking that MakeMusic insure that no one ever has to 
resort to the hacks (which may or may not materialize).

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 9 Mar 2005 at 10:28, Noel Stoutenburg wrote:

 If a product made use of an authentication scheme such as that used by
 MakeMusic!, and failed to provide public maps of the formats of data
 files inhibiting or preventing development of other packages which
 might read and write data files of that same format thus making it
 difficult or was impossible for a user to access the data in a file
 without that product any other product, whether provided by the vendor
 of the original or not. 
 
 Since MakeMusic! provides publicly the structure of the data files
 created with Finale, and also provides a free package that will read
 and print those files, I submit that Finale is most emphatically not
 victimware.

And what if nobody invests the time to write a program to edit the 
data files?

And what if somebody *does* invest the time? You think the complaints 
about Finale are legion! Hah!

You make an absolutely ridiculous argument, one that gives up all 
rights to the owner of the software code.

If there were already programs that can read and write Finale files, 
it would be one thing. For example, current versions of MS Word are 
also authenticated, but you have plenty of non-Microsoft word 
processers that can read and edit Word files. So, I'm not too worried 
about losing Word data (of course, I use Word97, which is *not* 
authenticated, so I have even less to worry about).

But with Finale, there really isn't anything out there that gives you 
any *reasonable* facsimile of reading/editing Finale files. Dolet's 
MusicXML converter is a great thing, but it's a long distance from 
perfection in converting.

All authenticated products (not just Finale) should have an escrowed 
master key in order to insure that you are not tying your data 
investment to the fortunes of a company that may fail next week.

And, no, I haven't purchased any authenticated version of Finale and 
don't intend to do so. I see nothing compelling about either version 
in comparison to WinFin2K3 to make me regret the fact of 
authentication (which prevents me on principle from purchasing the 
software).

-- 
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

   I hope Coda/MM will prepare for their users' needs in those last
   hours, should the time come sooner rather than later.
  
  Did I miss something? Have you become the Nostradamus of the list or
  is this just speculation?
 
 Would you advise a parent who supports a family of 6 to only consider 
 purchasing life insurance the day before he or she dies?
 
 The whole point of this is that it has to be in place *when the 
 company is a going concern* or it's of no value when they go down the 
 tubes.

David, no need to educate me on life insurance, it's Dennis and his sooner 
rather than later and the day they're no longer around to give out install 
keys talk, there's never an if in there. 

My expectation is that there are enough punters in the market place for the two 
current big players, I'm wondering if Dennis thinks we're all on some kind of 
precipice. 

-- 
Simon Troup
Digital Music Art

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 9 Mar 2005 at 11:20, Noel Stoutenburg wrote:

 d. collins wrote:
 
  In other words, you accept the fact that six months from now, or six
  years, or any time, you might no longer be able to use the copy of
  Finale you purchased
 
 The real issue is not whether or not one can continue to use Finale;
 it is whether one can access the information in a given set of Finale
 files. . . .

At a bare minimum, the legalistic minimum, yes. But as a practical 
matter, that's a rather libertarian point of view, kind of the I 
can't afford health care to which the libertarian replies be rich!

 . . . Neither the survival of Finale, nor the creation of an
 Escrowed untether is the critical step in the process here, in my
 opinion. . . .

Yes, it really *is* critical step. 

This list exists because of problems people have editing native 
Finale data with Finale itself. How much greater and more problematic 
would editing that data be *without* Finale?

 . . . The truly critical element here is for each user to make
 certain that every data file considered critical are stored in an
 accessible format.  To that end, I'd submit that ~.mus files are not
 as good a choice for long term archival purposes as ~.etf files. . . .

Assuming you're going to reverse engineer the data structure, yes, of 
course.

But the whole point of the key escrow is that IT OBVIATES THE NEED TO 
RE-ENGINEER. How anyone could not think that would be preferable to 
the mere hope (fantasy?) of reverse engineering the file format, I 
can't imagine.

 . . . And
 just from a practical standpoint, I'd guess that for each and every
 user, the likelihood of losing accessiblity to data files as a result
 of natural catastrophe, operator error, or of hardware, or of media
 failure is orders of magnitude higher than the likelihood of the
 failure of MakeMusic! . . .

But that kind of data loss happens only to individuals, whereas the 
failure of MakeMusic locks up the data of everyone who has purchased 
the authenticated versions of Finale.

 . . . So instead of demanding a escrow scheme, it
 seems to me that a prudent user is going to have redundant copies of
 all data files, and software in diverse locations.  In my case, I have
 three copies of my critical ~.ETF files, in widely separated
 locations, and the archived old version distribution disks also
 distributed among those locations. 

The cost to MakeMusic of key escrow is very low relative to the cost 
incurred by users of Finale should MM fail in the absence of key 
escrow. There is no logical explanation for their failure to provide 
insurance to their users.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 9 Mar 2005 at 13:20, dhbailey wrote:

 Noel Stoutenburg wrote:
  
  IN all honesty, given the installed base of files out there in
  Finale Formats, even if MakeMusic! were to completely dissapear
  tomorrow, I doubt that it would be more than a few months before
  someone else had a package out that would read files created with
  Finale.
 
 Sibelius does that now.

To what degree of accuracy?

That is, how much of the original layout is lost?

How much of what is lost can be recovered by re-editing in Sibelius?

It it is accomplished with the Dolet plugin, all you need to know is 
to save a Finale file with it, and then open the XML version again, 
and compare it to the original. While it does an admirable job of 
getting the essence of the original layout, it would still require a 
huge amount of work to get it back to the original look.

From what I hear, Sibelius can't even replicate some Finale layout 
characteristics, so you're not really get full read/write capability.

And, of course, how could anyone argue that being able to edit your 
file (imperfectly) with Sibelius would be preferable to being able to 
edit it with Finale in perpetuity? And then there's also the issue of 
then being able to continue to use the key-unlocked Finale to create 
new files after the demise of MakeMusic.

How anyone can claim these things are comparable or that it wouldn't 
be better for MM to provide the key escrow is simply beyond my 
comprehension. No one but an apologist for MM should be convinced by 
such arguments.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 9 Mar 2005 at 19:35, Simon Troup wrote:

  But it is truly amazing to watch the victims of said abuse actually
  justify it and defend their abusers.
 
 That's just your perception.
 
 Having marketed software that I've written myself I'm quite
 sympathetic about MakeMusic!s efforts to protect its investment, call
 it abuse if you like. Likewise, I don't like seeing someone download
 and use something for nothing that I've paid good money for out of the
 honesty of my heart. 

You seem concerned only about MakeMusic's side of the equation, and 
not about the downside for users of their software.

 There's more going on here than blind devotion and the Stockholm
 Syndrome.

You seem to give more empasis to MM's interests than to your own long-
term interests.

Setting up a key escrow should not be all that tough for MM to do. I 
see no obstacles to their implementing it, either technically or 
financially (a CD-ROM with documentation in a safe-deposit box would, 
at minimum, suffice).

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

On 9 Mar 2005 at 20:30, Simon Troup wrote:

I hope Coda/MM will prepare for their users' needs in those last
hours, should the time come sooner rather than later.
   
   Did I miss something? Have you become the Nostradamus of the list
   or is this just speculation?
  
  Would you advise a parent who supports a family of 6 to only
  consider purchasing life insurance the day before he or she dies?
  
  The whole point of this is that it has to be in place *when the
  company is a going concern* or it's of no value when they go down
  the tubes.
 
 David, no need to educate me on life insurance, it's Dennis and his
 sooner rather than later and the day they're no longer around to
 give out install keys talk, there's never an if in there. 

You think MM will survive forever? I've thought for years that the 
only software that is guaranteed to survive hundreds of years is 
Microsoft (that's proven by all the software and security failures 
that we see regularly in Star Trek episodes). I don't see how MM can 
survive with its current notation package in the face of the Sibelius 
onslaught. It's clearly a VHS/Betamax situation, and Sibelius is 
outmarketing MM.

 My expectation is that there are enough punters in the market place
 for the two current big players, I'm wondering if Dennis thinks we're
 all on some kind of precipice. 

Would you *object* if MM set up a key escrow?

If not, why argue against it?

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

David W. Fenton wrote:
[snip]
Would you *object* if MM set up a key escrow?
If not, why argue against it?
Does anybody know for a fact that they have not set up such an escrow?
--
David H. Bailey
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-09 Thread Darcy James Argue

IIRC (and I may not be), when the registration scheme for Finale 2004 
was announced, I believe Coda -- or at least, some people at Coda -- 
were actually sympathetic to Dennis's ideas.  I seem to recall someone 
saying something about at least creating some method for a user to 
transfer their registration from one computer to another without having 
to contact Coda.

I guess nothing ever came of that, eh?
While I think Dennis's idea is excellent and I fail to see how Coda 
would be harmed in any way by either putting a universal unlock code in 
escrow with a third party, or at the very minimum announcing *some* 
kind of worst-case scenario plan that doesn't leave its users in the 
lurch, I'm certainly not about to penalize myself by refusing to 
upgrade.  Partly that's because in the event of Coda's demise, I'm 
extremely confident a solution will be forthcoming -- whether we get 
the universal unlock code from Coda, or via Dennis's escrow scheme, or 
it's leaked by a Coda employee, or we have to defeat the copy 
protection illegally (this can already be done), or some other method 
entirely, I don't much care.  But I think the likelihood of us getting 
stuck without any solution at all is extremely small.

Of course, Dennis's solution is much better, and I encourage Coda to 
adopt it, because they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by 
doing so.  If they continue to refuse, that's unfortunate, but I'm not 
going to lose any sleep over it.

- Darcy
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-09 Thread Darcy James Argue

What's the point of setting it up if they don't announce it?
Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you 
*keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH? 

- Darcy
-
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On 09 Mar 2005, at 4:42 PM, dhbailey wrote:
David W. Fenton wrote:
[snip]
Would you *object* if MM set up a key escrow?
If not, why argue against it?
Does anybody know for a fact that they have not set up such an escrow?
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

2005-03-09 Thread Jari Williamsson

Darcy James Argue wrote:
IIRC (and I may not be), when the registration scheme for Finale 2004 
was announced, I believe Coda -- or at least, some people at Coda -- 
were actually sympathetic to Dennis's ideas.  I seem to recall someone 
saying something about at least creating some method for a user to 
transfer their registration from one computer to another without having 
to contact Coda.
You're correct, this was promised for a maintenance release of Fin2004.
Best regards,
Jari Williamsson
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes

Most corporations don't publicly discuss their own demise nor what steps 
they may have taken to support their customers in the event of their 
going belly up.  That doesn't mean they haven't taken such steps.

But to make a public statement to the effect of when we go out of 
business... or even if we go out of business... doesn't exactly 
inspire confidence in any customers and especially in investors.

MM's stock price may not be very high, but they are trying to make a go 
of things in the stock market.  To let investors know that there is a 
corporate mind-set considering the end-of-life is to keep them from 
investing in a company that knows it won't be around for a long time.

Can anybody produce corporate statements (especially from publicly 
traded companies) where the corporation tries to reassure the customer 
what will happen when/if the corporation goes out of business?  Don't 
raise the issue of banks and the FDIC, because they're required by law 
to make those statements about being insured.

David H. Bailey
Darcy James Argue wrote:
What's the point of setting it up if they don't announce it?
Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* 
it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH? 

- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY
On 09 Mar 2005, at 4:42 PM, dhbailey wrote:
David W. Fenton wrote:
[snip]
Would you *object* if MM set up a key escrow?
If not, why argue against it?

Does anybody know for a fact that they have not set up such an escrow?
--
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--
David H. Bailey
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Re: [Finale] Authentication schemes