Dreamweaver - Re: Product Activation Poll

Author

Re: Product Activation Poll

Chuck Martin

2003-11-27, 6:24 pm

Scott,

As you work for Macromedia, you hopefully are passing on the opinions here
about product activation to the people, er,bean counters, who make such
decisions. A few points:

- Unlike entering a serial number, users have to trust Macromedia that
information about them, their computer, and their data is not also
transmitted, stored, and used with product activation, which is an automatic
process that users cannot monitor.

- Like the door Nazis at Fry's and other stores, product activation assumes
you're a criminal until you prove otherwise. I walk right by them; they have
no right to search my property. (Once I pay for it and receive it, it's
mine.)

- You say that product activation engineering is a resource separate from
product development. With all the posts I've seen here about the qualtiy--or
lack therof--of MX 2004, would not those resources be better deployed to
improve product quality?

- In that vein, how many sales are you losing to the quality issues vs.
gains against piracy?

- Product activation is technology. Technology can be overcome. Even
"casual" pirates will eventually gain easy ways around it.

- Music companies and the RIAA are claiming that file sharing is cutting
into theyr sales. Their diatribes ignore 2 key issues: user complaints that
music quality is going down and prices of CDs are going up. The 2nd is Econ
101: raise prices and demand will shrink. Several companies have banded
together to reduce CD prices system-wide, to $12.99 or $9.99, if memory
serves. The message here is simple: make a quality product at a reasonable
price and both your market share and your profit will increase. This has a
nice side effect of defeeating a large percentage of piracy because far
fewer people are priced out of the market.

- Someone else mentioned they had no problem with Norton's adding of product
activation to their 2004 line of products. Well, because they did, I'm
switching--and I wrote them to tell them so. In that market, there are
reasonable and quality alternatives. In my case, when my subscription runs
out, I will likely switch to PC-Cillin, which does more for less. One of the
reasons that Macromedia can push for product activation is because, like
Microsoft, it is the 800-pound gorilla in the Web development market. Intuit
found that users flocked to alternatives to TurboTax, and the apologized
publicly for inflicting product activation on their users.

You have a criticla masss for a user base. You have classes at colleges and
universities that teach your products specifically. You have masses of
people who apologize for you for every flaw in your products encountered by
users. Your focus has turned away from meeting users' goals to expanding
feature lists and padding the company's bottom line. Many a company has
failed because it lost its customers' trust. In which direction will
Macromedia go?

Chuck Martin

"Scott Fegette" <sfegette_nospam@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:boon63$dhh$1@forums.macromedia.com...

quote:

> Doublewam- opinions noted, and it's very clear you have strong ones on

this

quote:

> subject. ;)
>
> I would simply note that network copy protection only addresses a small
> subset of the arena of piracy that activation addresses, and none of the
> scenarios that are much more common when users are NOT on the same LAN:
> - making copies of a CD and giving to friends
> - sharing a serial number
> - distributing the installer/serial on p2p networks
>
> Re: your resource comments- activation (just as with copy
> protection/serialization in prior versions of our products) are generally
> maintained by a 'global' engineering group- separate from the product

teams

quote:

> themselves. So in a nutshell- the product engineers worked on *features*
> for the MX 2004 product, not copy protection- same as before activation

was

quote:

> introduced.
>
> FYI...
>
> -Scott
> Macromedia, Inc.
>
>
> "doublewam" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
> news:bohi7d$co2$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> prevent 'casual privacy'. This is where someone in an office passes a CD
> around and lets people install the software illegally on more than 1
> computer.
> sighted. Many software products (including Macromedia's) have had built in
> safe guards to prevent this for years. Let me prove it for you...Take
> Macromedia Dreamweaver MX and install it on two computers in the same

office

quote:

> and use the same serial number for each installation. Lauch DW MX on one

quote:

> the machines. Keep that copy running and launch it on machine #2. Bam...it
> won't let you run it because it sees the first copy running with the same
> serial number over the local network.
> excuse for the type of piracy Macromedia and others are trying to prevent
> with Activation (or so they say), and the above observation proves this

type

quote:

> of piracy has already been taken care of, WHAT ON EARTH IS MACROMEDIA
> THINKING BY IMPLEMENTING ACTIVATION IN ITS PRODUCTS???!?!?!?!?!?!?!
It's[QUOTE][color=darkred]
> like the gun control nuts who think that making guns illegal for the

lawful

quote:

> citizen will somehow keep them out of the hands of criminals. Only the
> lawful suffer from this kind of flawed logic.
> worked well, Macromedia should have been investing those resources into
> making more solid products and giving us some substantial feature
> improvements. I say it without exxageration on my part, the biggest
> technological innovation in DW MX 2004 (or MX) is the Activation stuff.
> Think about it. How much time and resources do you think it took to get

this

quote:

> Activation program going? Now compare that to what you think is the most
> impressive new feature of DW MX (CSS?) and what do you guys who are
> developers think took more resources to implement.
>
>

John Dowdell

2003-11-27, 6:24 pm

Chuck Martin wrote:

quote:

> As you work for Macromedia, you hopefully are passing on the opinions here
> about product activation to the people, er,bean counters, who make such
> decisions.

We summarize online conversations for others, but if you want to make
sure the activation team hears your words direct and unfiltered then I'd
recommend that feedback form on the Activation section of the site:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/activation

quote:

> Unlike entering a serial number, users have to trust Macromedia that
> information about them, their computer, and their data is not also
> transmitted, stored, and used with product activation

Well, that's true that you have to believe that the description on the
site of how the process works isn't lying to you, but... you're already
trusting that we haven't embedded Gator or something else in the code,
true? I mean, if you're going to run executable code from someone in the
first place, doesn't that mean that you already trust that what they're
telling you is true...?

I see that you're advancing many other arguments here, most of which
have appeared in previous iterations of this thread. From what I've
seen, if you'll be attempting to persuade the activation team that
they're incorrect, then making a solid and persuasive case on any one
argument stands a better chance than a half-dozen refutable stances.
Your call, of course, but I see that you invested personal time in
writing so I believe you're sincere, and making one solid case to them
may give you a better return.

tx,
jd

--
John Dowdell, Macromedia Developer Support, San Francisco CA
Search technotes: http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/
Soapbox column: http://www.macromedia.com/desdev/jd_forum/
Daily technical diary: http://www.macromedia.com/go/blog_jd
Offlist mail is trapped by spam-filters... best here, thanks!

Paul Anthony

2003-11-27, 6:24 pm

<snip>

quote:

>I mean, if you're going to run executable code from someone in the
> first place, doesn't that mean that you already trust that what they're
> telling you is true...?

</snip>

On a light hearted note- I use Microsoft Windows.

I don't trust everything from the Microsoft mouth.

but then thats another story......

Regards,
Paul Anthony.

William Kazak

2003-11-27, 6:39 pm

Reading the "so called" poll results at that URL, most everyone is
"supposedly" happy to activate the software and most do not even know they
did so!
When I purchase software, I want to "use it" on my computer-s!

Bullitt

2003-11-30, 12:48 pm

I am stopping my Macromedia purchases with MX. *Regardless* of new
features in MX2004 or any later iteration, I will *never* reward a
company for making my life more difficult.

PS I am a licensed law abiding user.

Bullitt

Message by doublewam webforumsuser@macromedia.com on: 11/1/03 6:42:11 PM

quote:

>I was going to upgrade to DW MX 2004 but have decided against it because I am opposed to Product Activation.
>
>I will only put up with it if I fell I have no other choice but to

(i.e. Windows XP). When given a viable alternative that does not use
product activation, I will go with it. Right now my viable alternative
to DW MX 2004 is the last version of DW. I simply will not upgrade until
I feel I have no other choice (so many new features/enhancements I can't
live without them). DW MX was so mature as a product, I think it will
take Macromedia years to get it to the place where I feel I just got to
upgarde in spite of Activation.

quote:

>
>Now...the point of me thread...How many others out there are holding

off on upgrading to 2004 solely on the basis of Product Activation?

quote:

>
>
>
>

William Kazak

2003-12-02, 9:42 pm

I am with you!

Scott Fegette

2003-12-02, 9:44 pm

On 11/22/03 3:17 AM, "William Kazak" wrote:

quote:

> When I purchase software, I want to "use it" on my computer-s!

Before MX 2004, our product license agreements only allowed one installation
per license/purchase/serial number- it was never legal beforehand to use a
single license/serial number on multiple "computer-s". Doing so was a
violation of your license agreement.

In this respect, the MX 2004 EULA is more lenient than prior Macromedia
software licenses (two installs per MX 2004 license are now allowed, given
the two machines are also of the same platform).

-Scott
Macromedia, Inc.

Mike

2003-12-15, 4:24 pm

Bullitt <c_bullitt@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<bqbml4$okp$1@forums.macromedia.com>...[QUOTE][color=darkred]
> I am stopping my Macromedia purchases with MX. *Regardless* of new
> features in MX2004 or any later iteration, I will *never* reward a
> company for making my life more difficult.
>
> PS I am a licensed law abiding user.
>
>
> Bullitt
>
>
> Message by doublewam webforumsuser@macromedia.com on: 11/1/03 6:42:11 PM
> (i.e. Windows XP). When given a viable alternative that does not use
> product activation, I will go with it. Right now my viable alternative
> to DW MX 2004 is the last version of DW. I simply will not upgrade until
> I feel I have no other choice (so many new features/enhancements I can't
> live without them). DW MX was so mature as a product, I think it will
> take Macromedia years to get it to the place where I feel I just got to
> upgarde in spite of Activation.
> off on upgrading to 2004 solely on the basis of Product Activation?

Here's an idea that companies can use to cater to both types of
customers:

Charge one price for software.

Give a 50% rebate to those who activate the software and nothing to
those who choose not to activate. If piracy costs us all $$ then the
customers who activate their software will not have to pay the extra
cost companies incur due to piracy.

I'm sure there are many remedies but this is just a suggestion IMHO.

jjs

2003-12-15, 4:25 pm

This does relate - The Photoshop group has been agonizing over Adobe's new
Activation policy. Seems many of the posts which whine about 'bugs' in
Photoshop are actually due to pirated software corrupted by cracking the
Activation scheme.

Is the same perhaps happening here? Are there people with hacked DW who are
experiencing (well deserved) 'oopses' because of the hacks?

lot53253253

2004-07-29, 7:14 pm

Well, I just purchased a copy of DreamWeaver MX 2004, and this product
activation garbage is making me deeply regret it. I'm installing the software
in a test environment before I deploy it to the end user, and this idiotic
product activation system is making a very simple software test a serious pain
in the butt. Fork out $400 for a smegging web editor, and Macromedia is making
it hard for me to even use the thing.

Everytime I think that Macromedia can't get any worse, they shock me. I hate
this horrible, horrible company.

John Tucker

2004-07-29, 7:15 pm

lot53253253 wrote:
> Well, I just purchased a copy of DreamWeaver MX 2004, and this product
> activation garbage is making me deeply regret it. I'm installing the
> software in a test environment before I deploy it to the end user,
> and this idiotic product activation system is making a very simple
> software test a serious pain in the butt. Fork out $400 for a
> smegging web editor, and Macromedia is making it hard for me to even
> use the thing.
>
> Everytime I think that Macromedia can't get any worse, they shock
> me. I hate this horrible, horrible company.

You need to contact them directly and express your misgivings. There isn't a
single thing we can do for you here.

By the way, you can thank all of the software pirates for forcing companies
to have to go the activation route.

John

lot53253253

2004-07-29, 7:15 pm

>By the way, you can thank all of the software pirates for forcing companies
>to have to go the activation route.

Yes, because all of these great anti-piracy measures have done such wonderful
jobs of preventing people who would have *never* actually purchased the product
from stealing it. I mean really, these anti-piracy measures are broken all of
the time, and the only people that end up being effected by the software
activation and the like are the people who actually paid for the software.

Robert Barnett

2004-07-30, 11:14 pm

Oh, please give me a break. Activation doesn't do a damn thing to stop
piracy. If it did we wouldn't have seen cracks out for it before the final
product shipped. The simple rule of life is "You can make, someone will
break it." It takes surprising little time to break it considering the
amount of trouble and money companies like Macromedia go through to
implement it. The only thing activation does well it cause headaches for the
legitimate customer.

Robert

Robert Barnett

2004-07-30, 11:14 pm

Personally, I don't know why companies bother. They just need to accept the
fact that their products are going to be pirated to some extent and accept
that as part of doing business. Right now these companies are basically
trying to swim through quicksand with a cinderblock chained to each leg. The
only thing they are doing is making legitimate customers think twice about
buying the product, especially when they have such grief from activation.
They start wondering "Geeze, may I should steal the thing. It apparently
doesn't pay to support this company. They think I am crook anyways so I
might as well act like one."

Now that is exactly what a company needs paying customers to start thinking
about. Couple that with buggy initial releases and long delays in fixing
these problems and it just makes stealing a very attractive way to go.

Shame really!

Robert

John Tucker

2004-07-30, 11:14 pm

Robert Barnett wrote:
> Oh, please give me a break. Activation doesn't do a damn thing to stop
> piracy. If it did we wouldn't have seen cracks out for it before the
> final product shipped. The simple rule of life is "You can make,
> someone will break it." It takes surprising little time to break it
> considering the amount of trouble and money companies like Macromedia
> go through to implement it. The only thing activation does well it
> cause headaches for the legitimate customer.
>
> Robert

I never said that activation stopped piracy. I said that you can thank the
pirates for driving companies to implement it. Don't you folks have more
important things to worry about? Activation has never caused a problem for
me or many others. Just use the software. :-)

John

Robert Barnett

2004-07-31, 7:14 pm

Good for you John and that is so not the point. Why should someone fork out
all that money for Dreamweaver or any other product with activation when it
is clear the company is treating everyone like a pirate.

We are supposed to trust the when they release a buggy product before it was
really ready that they will fix the problem. But, they don't have to trust
us. To me this is very one sided and not right.

I think what we need is a consumers bill of rights that outlaws these types
of things. Besides outlawing activation and other such garbage like it, it
also specifies that consumers can return software if they are not happy with
out or because it didn't meet the marketing hype on the package (there goes
Microsoft). It would also state that unless the full licensing agreement was
accessible before purchase then it doesn't apply and it would make it
illegal for a company released any computer product with more than 5 bugs in
it or 2 security holes and it would give the consumer the right to file a
law suite for false advertising, lost work, damages, etc. This becomes very
important when you are trying to make a living with a product and you can't
get your work done because the thing is so buggy. It would also mandate a
time frame for the company to fix the problems. For example they have 3
months to release a bug fix for the problems and 5 days for security issues.

Then and only then would these high prices for this software be worth while,
hell with most of this in effect I might even over look the activation.
Because then there is trust and value for both sides. However, the computer
industry will never let this happen and our elected officials are too greedy
to not to take the industries special interest money and do it anyways. In
the end it will always be the consumer that get ripped off.

Robert