>3.    What would Microchip like you to do and why?
A similar issue was raised late last year at the Indian Masters in 
Delhi, India... Their C compiler C18 has a 60 day limit after which it 
loses some optimisation and features. Somebody pointed out you could 
keep the compiler full-featured after 60 days if you changed the PC's 
system clock to point back. The Microchip engineer didn't have anything 
to say about this and passed it over. It seemed he knew about this 
protection scheme failure. Which means Microchip knows about it, and 
since they haven't done anything to improve the protection so far, they 
don't mind the compiler getting 'cracked' this way.

So maybe Microchip doesn't really mind cloning of its programmers, or 
that its software protection being bypassed this way. They are in the 
business of selling microcontrollers and maybe believe that giving away 
free/cheap software, easy-to-clone programmers helps the sales of these 
microcontrollers.

--
Mohit Mahajan.

Russell McMahon wrote:
>> Manufactured by yourself, the ICD2 clone (16F877 and 18F2445) will 
>> be
>> around $20-$25. Firmware upgraded automatically.
>> http://www.edaboard.com/ftopic161641.html
> 
> I remember discussion about the ethics of the ICD2 a while ago but 
> paid little attention at the time.
> No doubt this has been well sorted out by now (if sorting was ever 
> needed).
> 
> What is the
> 
>     1.    legal and
> 
>     2.    ethical
> 
> position re buying or building a clone ICD2 where "firmware will be 
> upgraded automatically".
> And, regardless of the answers to 1 and 2 above,
> 
>     3.    What would Microchip like you to do and why?
> 
> 
>         Russell
> 
> 
-- 
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