SimonWM opened this issue on Oct 24, 2002 ยท 146 posts
kbade posted Thu, 24 October 2002 at 7:18 PM
It might surprise him (though it shouldn't now), I would like to defend one or two of the points Jack has made. If DAZ has posted that they have not bought P5 (I haven't read it yet), there are good reasons to believe it. First, I have no proof to the contrary. Second, my dealings with DAZ as a customer have been good. Third, Jack's point about not being P5 helps DAZ defend against any charge that DAZ disassembled it to work on a competing app is entirely correct. Otherwise, DAZ would have to construct elaborate protocols for keeping the disassemblers and reverse engineers separate from the programmers, whether one calls such protocols a "chinese wall" or a "clean room." It could be done in theory, but it's not easy, and not at all easy to explain to a jury. And since the initial P5 EULA (haven't looked to see whether there's a new one yet) contained language that would encompass DAZ's apparent efforts, passing on P5 would be the prudent move for DAZ.