Microdesign family now in Public Domain
John Elliott
British Amstrad PCW Club]
# MicroDesign family now in Public Domain
# A Press Release from Creative Technology
#
# It will probably come as a surprise to PCW users that Creative Technology
# are still in business. Although we have not sold any PCW software or
# peripherals for several years, we are still here, and working happily in
# other areas. These include software and hardware design, Internet and
# World Wide Web design and development, and educational software - for
# more information, have a look at our website at www.cict.co.uk. For old
# time's sake, we're also providing the PCW Club with it's own website,
# coming soon at www.thepcwclub.org.uk.
# But the days of working with the PCW itself are long gone for us, and
# we now feel that the time has come to put our PCW programs and products
# into the public domain. MicroDesign and its relatives have always been
# copyrighted software, and we have always controlled the duplication and
# distribution of the software closely. But since PCW users no longer buy
# it, there's little point in trying to sell it, so we're now giving it
# away.
# What does this mean in practice? Quite simply, by revoking the licence
# restrictions on the MicroDesign program, we make it legal for you to make
# copies of the software, and to give them to your friends or fellow club-
# members. For material such as our Fonts discs, which can be copied easily,
# this is simple and straightforward.
# For the programs (MicroDesign2 and 3, Tweak, the Network, and the Font &
# Shade Designer) copying is a little more difficult, since both master
# discs and working copies are copy-protected. We do not intend to make it
# any easier by producing non-copy-protected versions of these programs!
# But the change in the licence means that from now on, it will be legal to
# make working copies from your master discs, and to distribute them freely.
# And for the techies out there, it also becomes legal to reverse-engineer
# the copy-protection to produce your own unprotected version, or to
# distribute a "snapshot" of a running MD3 environment (CP/M licence
# permitting).
# If you have not been able to use our software before, because of costs
# or licence restrictions, we hope that you will enjoy the opportunity to
# use it in the future.
# Nik Holmes, Creative Technology.
nb: The "it's" on line 7 is present in the original.
[My own comments]
1. JOYCE has, of course, been able to defeat Microdesign copy protection
for absolutely ages, at least as far as turning MD3 discs into .DSKs is
concerned. I suspect v1.9.4 is also able to turn .DSKs back into MD3
discs, though I've never tried.
2. If you want to copy an MD3 protected disc, the simplest method is
probably going to be to use TeleDisk under DOS, which has been able to
defeat MD3 copy protection for many more years than JOYCE has:
<http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/download-tools/pc/teled212.zip>.
3. With respect to the CP/M licence, CP/M is currently available under
an open-source(ish) licence: <http://www.cpm.z80.de/license.html>. However
this applies only to the bits owned by Lineo; the EMS/EMT file contains
a lot of Amstrad/Locomotive code as well, which is still under the usual
strict licence. Until Amstrad and/or SD Microsystems grant permission
(without my PCW manuals to hand, I don't know which one owns the rights)
snapshots can't be distributed. So you won't see MD3 distributed with
JOYCE yet.
--
------------- http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/index.html --------------------
John Elliott |BLOODNOK: "But why have you got such a long face?"
|SEAGOON: "Heavy dentures, Sir!" - The Goon Show
:-------------------------------------------------------------------------)
Brian Watson
"John Elliott" <j...@seasip.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:1008359853.26849....@news.demon.co.uk...
> [Copied verbatim from the newsletter of The PCW Club, formerly the
> British Amstrad PCW Club]
>
> # MicroDesign family now in Public Domain
> # A Press Release from Creative Technology
CPC versions are already in WACCI's PD Library, I believe, Peter Campbell
having handed them over a year or so ago.
--
Brian
Matthew Phillips
"Brian Watson" <br...@spheroid.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Nothing about this has appeared in WACCI, and the PD library listing does
not include these. Could this be sorted? I'm sure many people would be
interested!
--
Matthew Phillips
Oxford
Brian Watson
"Matthew Phillips" <mn...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:c3f033eb4...@sinenomine.freeserve.co.uk...
I thought John Bowley had made an announcement about this during his time as
editor (in that, I thought I had read it in WACCI at the time) but no harm
in mentioning it again in the next issue.
I owe our PD librarian a letter and some discs so I'll make sure he's clued
up on it too.
--
Brian (WACCI Publicity & Treasurer)