Have you been horsed today?

[Herb Chong [DCS]]

In article <1261 at eagle.UUCP> mjs at eagle.UUCP (M.J.Shannon) writes:
>{Eat me, bug!}
>
>Why do people ship `binary only' goodies?  I can think of several reasons:
>
>	to hide the fact that the program may steal information from the
>		machine it runs on;
>	to hide the fact that the program may destroy information on that
>		machine;
>	to hide the fact that the program itself was stolen;
>	to protect `proprietary interests'.
>
>Of the above reasons, only one (the last one, in case there's any doubt) is at
>all legitimate.  The others all indicate illegalities which may be prosecuted.
>
>Now I just received a games distribution for a micro from a coworker in my
>company.  When I asked if there was a possibility of getting source, I was
>told, `No Way'.
>
>Which of the above reasons should I presume is the cause for this reaction, and
>dare I run any of these programs on my machine?
>
>	Concerned and annoyed,
>-- 
>	Marty Shannon
>UUCP:	ihnp4!eagle!mjs
>Phone:	+1 201 522 6063

there are a few others i can think of:
	to prevent people from figuring out the game by reading the source.
	after all, what fun would adventure be if you knew everything
	to do at every room before your very first game?

	to add to the "value" of the game by making it hard to get.

	to make people dependent upon you for updates, etc., with 
	charging optional.

	to make sure that only one group's ideas end up in the game both
	for consistency and "future plans".  this does not mean that
	ideas and suggestions are not used, but have to fit into the
	"master plan" for these.

user of all of the above and only the last of marty's
Herb Chong...

I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....

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