[Info-vax] VMS License Generator

[John Wallace]

On Jan 30, 12:10 am, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber... at comcast.net>
wrote:
> On 1/29/2012 6:02 PM, Subcommandante XDelta wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:52:11 +0000 (UTC),
> > hel... at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---undress to reply)
> > wrote:
>
> >> In article
> >> <362e3c1e-aea8-44e9-9802-c98a3fb82... at c20g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,
> >> "Mike K."<madcrow.maxw... at gmail.com>  writes:
>
> >>> While I find the quasi-Che rhetoric to be entertaining, I still feel
> >>> that it's not right to pirate software. Especially when there are FREE
> >>> and LEGAL ways to use that software. It would be one thing if HP
> >>> discontinued OpenVMS and ended the Hobby Program. Then, perhaps,
> >>> QUIETLY circulating something like this might be morally (if not
> >>> legally) acceptable. But to post openly on a newsgroup and to insult
> >>> the Hobbyist Program as "gruel slopped out by HP" is just plain wrong
> >>> and is far more likely to pull the plug of OpenVMS's life support (to
> >>> use your rhetoric) than it is to restore it to full health.
>
> > Dear Herr Helbig,
>
> > Absolutely no disrespect was implied, declared, or intended, for those
> > good souls that have created, preserved and maintained the OpenVMS
> > Hobbyist program and facility in it's previous incarnation, for all
> > these years, far from it, it has been a labour of love and the VLF
> > acknowledges, respects, and celebrates that.
>
> > The opprobrium of the VLF is directed squarely and solely at HP senior
> > management and they full well know what crimes against VMS they have
> > serially and severally perpetrated in their penny-wise and
> > pound-foolish policies.
>
> >> As I've already mentioned, I see this as a serious threat.  Let's give
> >> him a couple of days.  If it is not taken down and no apology is
> >> forthcoming, all concerned should take legal action.  The more the
> >> better.
>
> > No apology will be forthcoming.
>
> > The apology that needs be forthcoming is from HP Senior Management for
> > forcing this situation through the malign neglect of their asset,
> > which is a crime against the intellectual and computing science
> > commonwealth of humanity.
>
> >> Note that Kim Schmitz is in jail.  Online criminals CAN be caught.
> >> Schmitz is looking at a 14-year jail sentence.
>
> >> What this person is doing is illegal.  Thus, this is a criminal case,
> >> not a civil case.  As far as I know, in every country in the world
> >> reporting a crime to the police does not cost anything to the one who
> >> reports it.
>
> > Sometimes the real cost and damage is to their self-respect, their
> > dignity, their deep humanity, and to their integrity, if they were
> > only aware of it.
>
> > Many laws are criminal, it depends on your perspective on civil
> > society.
>
> >> Unless the one reporting requests otherwise, legal
> >> proceedings will be between the state and the accused.
>
> > Are you defending VMS or HP Senior Management? - Please try to keep
> > the two separate in your mind.
>
> > VMS was an orphaned asset of the late, great, Digital Equipment
> > Corporation, which was purchased by Compaq, who did not have the wit
> > or wisdom to do anything with it, and comprehensively dropped the
> > ball, Compaq thence merged with HP during the regime of the wicked
> > witch, Carly Fiori. which thankfully passed into the fiefdom of Mark
> > Hurd, who, alas, neglected the asset as well.
>
> > Cupidity or stupidity? - history will be the judge.
>
> > Just as when you marry, there is no implicate right to abuse or
> > neglect your spouse, just as when you have children there is no
> > implicate right to neglect or abuse your children, just as when you
> > purchase a pet animal there is no implicate right to abuse or neglect
> > the animal...
>
> > Alas this is where that analogy falters, if a corporate purchases an
> > asset, they can damn well do what they please with it, regardless if
> > it the greatest commercially derived operating system on the planet.
>
> > The crime (against humanity) is what HP Senior Management have done,
> > or more precisely not done with their currently owned VMS asset.
>
> > What crime is there in the creation of the LibreVMS LMFgen?
>
> > If you use the licences so generated to keep your non-commercial
> > hobbyist VMS systems operating, there is a theoretical and
> > questionable "criminality" admittedly, but you are not defrauding or
> > depriving HP of any revenue streams.
>
> > No one has to use it, and the VLF encourage all not do so - so long as
> > there is a respectful, equitable and accessible VMS Hobbyist Program
> > in place.
>
> >> In Germany, one can report a crime to the police via a web form.  It
> >> takes a couple of minutes.  I have done it before.  If you think you are
> >> safe because I report it in Germany (and you are somewhere else), again
> >> read up on Kim Schmitz.
>
> > Such an assertion is a tad "STASI" but do what you will, if venting
> > your currently confused spleen makes you feel better.
>
> >> I am not joking.  I am completely serious and if there is not an apology
> >> here in the newsgroup within two days I will take legal action.
>
> > And, if you wish, contact all the relevant cyberlockers and filehosts
> > with takedown requests, in a post MegaUpload meltdown world, I am sure
> > they will be responsive, but bear in mind that it will be a
> > supernumerary effort and a waste of attention cycles, on you part.
>
> > The LibreVMS LMFgen v1.1 Beta will be uploaded to alt.binaries.warez.
>
> > Saludos cordiales,
>
> > Subcommandante XDelta,
> > p.p. The VMS Liberation Front
>
> It is not going to make much difference.  Every knowledgeable VMS person
> should be able to figure out how to defeat the license validation
> process. Hopefully most of us are honest men and women and will not put
> their knowledge to improper use!

[to richard and others]

It's not a licence validation process, not in general anyway, not
according to DEC anyway. (I have no idea what HP's current formally
stated position might be).

The official position statement from DEC on a number of occasions was
that PAKs were a licence tracking aid, not a licence validation/
enforcement tool. I can't readily find any evidence of this (it was
pre-Web) but confidence is high.

A PAK is a piece of paper (or electronic equivalent), it does not of
itself grant the legal right to use something. A licence grants that
right. Typical licences are full of far more legalese than fits on a
PAK sheet. A PAK is also not (or at least back then was not) a
"Certificate of Authenticity" such as is required by some software
products before they can be fully installed or used.

So a documented customer without the required PAKs but who could
provide proof of purchase or other evidence of legitimate entitlement
wouldn't, according to DEC's stated position, ultimately need the
relevant PAK as proof of licence. I'd guess that "borrowing" a PAK (a
Temporary Service PAK or whatever) might be OK; I know they were
reasonably easy to come by for customers with a credible story, while
a longer term fix was identified.

Wasn't there once a well known T-shirt with the PAK-check avoidance
code on it?

On the other hand I'd not be at all surprised if an unapproved PAK
generator is already breaking some US content-protection legislation
of some form, at least in the opinion of a sufficiently highly
motivated lawyer. Using licenced software without an appropriate
licence is likely to be an offence in many (but not all) countries.

I don't particularly approve of publishing the unofficial LMF
generator, but nor do I particularly approve of the re-writing of
history. So far as I am aware, PAKs were not intended as licence
enforcement tools.

Correction welcome, as always. I am not a lawyer.