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Independent Developers Fight Piracy & Lose
An anonymous reader writes "The author of the Echelon decided to take his fight against software piracy to the next level and then threw in the towel. After someone began posting new serial numbers on a well known hacking site, the author took matters into his own hands. With version 1.0, entering a hacked serial number causes the software deleted the user's Home directory. Yes, you read it right, the software completely erases it (aka rm -rf ~). A variety of people have voiced some some strong opinions on this. While some argue that piracy is good for established companies, a few large companies are battling piracy and having limited success. Small, independent developers, however, are recognising this is a serious problem and are generally stumped by what to do about it."
If its in the EULA they can do anything they want and have the arse covered.
By using this software you grant us the right to delete all your files
So, you are advocating vigilante justice without the presumption of innocence?
I suppose you also think that if somebody steals your wallet, you have the right to chase them down and shoot them? No indictment, no trial, no judge nor jury, no conviction, no sentencing hearing... Straight to execution!
Any software can be copied. With some difficulty, someone, somewhere will rip it and burn it. That's life.
Why not try to use that to your advantage. Instead of trying to force people to support the development costs, realize that being a developer will mean you have people freeloading off you. At least you will get publicity from the software popularity. If the software is worth writing, it should either be novel/good enough for people to voluntarily pay for, or it may be justifiable in it's own right as something worth giving to the world.
If you want to have people pay for your code, embed it in hardware (like microcontrollers). It's cheap enough to build embedded devices, why code only for major platforms?
Anyone who uses serial numbers, registrations, encryption, or nasty underhanded attacks to try to force people to pay for software, is greatly misguided. Software is most often pirated by someone wanting to try a piece of software for a few days, or for a simple task. It is ridiculous to ask 30$ for a single-use software. It isn't ridiculous to ask a user to pay after a month of use. But because a serial number is needed for the first few (unrestricted) uses, the pirated serial has already been used, and the user need not think about giving the developer any reward. (besides, they have spent their time looking up a SN/ or cracking the program)
Software shouldn't cost money.
Problem solving, for specific/custom programming projects should cost money. Open source development should be rewarded by centralized funding pools.
Developers who try to keep their code secret, and who try to charge people money for it, shouldn't be surprised to find that it's a greedy approach that isn't worthwhile for society to protect.
Good luck to those who try anyways. I hope the developer mentioned in the article is charged with some kind of civil law suit for damages.