[Info-vax] Any stronger versions of the LMF planned ?, was: Re: LMF Licence Generator Code

[Simon Clubley]

On 2021-08-06, jimc... at gmail.com <jimcausey at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Friday, August 6, 2021 at 6:55:11 AM UTC-7, dsweene... at gmail.com wrote:
>> It should come as no surprise that creating a hacked version of pakgen to generate license PAKs for any VMS or OpenVMS product is not legal. The webmaster of the mirroring site has been contacted to remove the pakgen source from the site. Lawrence, whether or not the site removes the code you cannot use or share PAKGEN hack you are creating. 
>> 
>> Dave Sweeney
>
> Versions of PAKGEN.C are available all over the Internet in various forums.  Even if the mirrors site removes it, the cat is out of the bag there.
>
> In many (most?) jurisdictions, it's also perfectly legal to author, refactor, and share code like PAKGEN.  You're not in a position to tell Lawrence whether or not he can share that code.

Even _if_ that is the case Jim, this situation could provoke
a strong response from VSI.

For example, VSI are very clearly in a mindset that's all about
collecting ongoing revenue from the users and making sure the
users don't try "cheating".

As such, I would not be surprised to find out that VSI are
considering implementing a much stronger version of the LMF for
the x86-64 VMS production versions.

Right now would be an ideal time to implement such a change as there
are no production licences for x86-64 VMS at the moment, so there are
no backwards compatibility issues if they implement a replacement
right now.

They could take a signed licence keys approach and later on
actually implement signed images in VMS that cannot be tampered
with to patch out the licence checks. The days when you had to
support manually entering a licence key have probably passed.

BTW, if VSI do that, you will not be able to patch the resulting
images to bypass the licence checks on the time-limited licences
if VSI do go bust.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.