Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 19:29:55 +0100 (MET)
From: Uffe Friis Lichtenberg <uffefl@diku.dk>
To: quake-editing@nvg.unit.no
Subject: Re: Legal stuff (was Re: WAD conversion sketch)
In-Reply-To: <199603181432.PAA22685@chapelle.eed.ericsson.se>
On Mon, 18 Mar 1996 Raphael.Quinet@eed.ericsson.se wrote:
> As long as the full-featured editors do not allow you to edit the
> shareware game, it should be OK. The current tools are far from being
> "full-featured".
Agreed.
> I don't think that small tools would really harm id
> Software, if they work with the shareware game.
Dunno about that. Perhaps a message in these small tools that simply
states "Will Not Work With The Shareware" (or something similar) would be
sufficient, even though they might actually work?
> The editor will check for the registered version, because this is the
> only part of the code which will know the meaning of the various parts
> of the PACK file (or BSP files). Thus it will be able to check if the
> PACK file contains some entries that are only available in the
> registered game.
This is of course assuming that iD will choose a strategy similar to Doom
with the registered contra shareware versions.
> I'm not sure if it is a bad thing. Maintaining two different EXE's
> would mean more work for id Software (creating the two versions,
> supporting them, etc.). They cannot simply create a shareware EXE
> which differs only by a few bytes (i.e. a hard-coded flag), because
> some cracker would certainly post a patch to enable all the disabled
> features. Also, it is easier to pirate and distribute a single EXE
> file than to copy the whole CD-ROM, so a different EXE wouldn't
> protect id Software for a long time.
I don't think it would be difficult for iD to do separate compiles
(perhaps with a -DSHAREWARE for the shareware version) that actually
makes two very different exes. But the discussion is futile anyway:
pirates will circumvent anything iD can throw at them, so iD are probably
better off directing their energy towards the game engine.
> Of course, I assume
> that the authors of the editors include more than one test which
> checks if the user has a registered version of the game.
Can't see the problem here. If there is just a single test the author of
the editor can't take responsibility for modified versions of the editor.
Again, pirates circumvent just about anything, and wasting time on
copy-protection is useless.
Just make the test so an ordinary user wouldn't be able to circumvent it.
Zonk,
Uffe. [uphfe]
uffefl@diku.dk