Herbert Graf wrote:
>> >> How about this alternative for students: have their accounts verified 
>> >> by
>> >> their professor, or ship the free samples only to 
>> >> university/college/high
>> >> school addresses?
>> >
>> > Way too much work, on both the students part (much of my work during
>> > school wasn't FOR school), the profs (trust me, they are not interested
>> > in more work) and the companies (confirming a prof is a prof?). As a
>> > student I would have considered a manu requiring this not worth my time
>> > given their competition didn't have those requirements.
>>
>> Well OK, how about just requiring that the package be shipped to a school
>> address and addressed to a Prof.?
>
> Again, Profs are busy and trust me: they don't want the bother. And,
> what about work that has nothing to do with school (which was almost all
> my PIC work)?

Maybe my experience is unique, but I don't see a problem here. Most of my 
professors would not mind accepting a package for me.

I know that for instance Advanced Circuits gives discounts to students, but 
the boards have to be shipped to a college or university address.


>> Remember that we're talking about a potentially "all-or-nothing" 
>> situation.
>> If Microchip can easily write off the losses due to abuse, there's 
>> nothing
>> to argue about. However back in August they said that the scammers forced
>> them to cancel the free samples program, so it must have been serious
>> enough.
>
> Sounds more like bean counters got their hands on things.

IIRC Sanghi said the cost of the program was in the tens of millions 
($60M/y?). If I were in charge, I would definitely consider pulling the plug 
on the free samples, versus laying off several hundred engineers.


> As for "all or
> nothing", having it sent to a Prof is WORSE then nothing to me since I'd
> rather not have something then have the Prof secretly annoyed with me.

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't have a good relationship with your 
professors.


>> In any case, the bottom line is that they can find ways to stop the abuse
>> without causing too much inconvenience to the legitimate users.
>
> If that were the case they'd all implement those "ways".

Why do you assume they didn't? I bet that the change in policy (how many 
times you can order and how many samples at a time) was initiated by someone 
who looked at the patterns and figured that this change would make it less 
convenient for the scammers to get the stuff in sufficient volumes.

Vitaliy 

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