#PROBLEM FILE!!!
4 messages in this thread
HEY SYSOPS! The file SUPERC.LHA, a DeskJet 500C driver, is a _commercial
product_. It's the Super_DJC driver from Creative Focus, and is
copyrighted software.
Anyone who downloaded this should delete it immediately, or purchase the
Super_DJC driver from Creative Focus.
Whoever posted it, please let the owner of the BBS you downloaded it from
know that it's commercial software.
…Denny
Denny,
Thanks for pointing this out. I have moved the file out of public
view. You are ** SURE ** about this, I presume. The problem is that
there is absolutely no imbedded text in the driver asserting a copyright,
so there is no way for us to confirm or disprove your statement, other
than if we were to have a copy of the commercial package to which to
compare it.
If you have any contact with Gerry Hull, you may want to recommend that
he imbed a copyright string into his products. Of course, this applies to
all commercial software developers. This is by no means a fool-proof way
of protecting things, but at least it will stop innocent propigation.
Thanks,
– BobR
Bob,
Yep, I'm positive, it's a byte-by-byte copy of the one on my original
Super_DJC disk.
Very good point about embeding an ) string. But I'm not sure you can DO
that with a printer driver–notice there are no version strings in them.
Yeah, I realize that there was no indicator that it was commercial. I just
hope the 41 people who downloaded it see this message…
…Denny
Denny,
Thanks for confirming the byte-for-byte match. As someone who tries to
make his living with commercial software, I am very much concerned about
the unauthorized distribution of commercial work.
As for imbedding a Copyright string in the executable, I can't think of
any reason why that can't be done. A printer driver is a program – yes it
does have to have a "special" structure to it, but it's a program
nonetheless. It can have internal initialized variables, and that's all
you have to do to imbed a "Copyright (C) 1992 …." string.
Interestingly, I just looked at a couple of Commodore supplied printer
drivers, and they do not have imbedded copyright strings either. However,
one that I looked at (the Postscript driver) did have a number of embedded
strings, which isn't particularly surprising of a PS driver.
I also hope that the folks that downloaded the file in question see
these messages, and do the honorable thing and delete the file from their
systems. I apologize to Gerry Hull and Creative Focus on behalf of the
sysops here – this was an honest mistake.
Again, thanks for coming to the defense of the vendor.
– BobR