Re: Java and avoiding software piracy?
"Twisted" <twisted0n3@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1184290322.272667.164930@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
The reason to write such software is when it directly benefits your
own productivity through your own in-house use, and then there's no
reason to be stingy and not open-source it since you derive the
benefits of its direct use anyway, and releasing it encourages quid
pro quo (you may get nice free tools and not have to write them; you
might get bug fixes or suggestions from other users of such stuff
savvy enough to modify the code).
Feel free to accept them if they arrive, but don't *expect* bug fixes
or suggestions. Only the top 1% or so of open source project ever receive
outside help.
- you as the author have to be able and willing to dedicate a lot of
the time following into consulting and/or maintaining the software. If
you already have a day job you're unlikely to have enough spare time
that you can spend to follow this business model. Customization takes
time. So does maintaining and supporting an application.
If you already have a day job you already have a steady paycheque and
no need to charge for the software.
That's not necessarily true. Your day job might not be paying enough,
and yet it's the best you can get, and so you need to supplement it with a
second or third job. If programming software is a part of your skillset,
then there's no reason not to consider writing software for profit as one
of those second or third jobs.
Conclusion: I am definitely a friend of OSS, but the idea that seems
to go around that an OSS business model is the one and only way to
earn some money with software is just bogus.
The only ways to earn money with software that depend on charging for
access to the software itself are by their nature coercive and
extortionate. They are also doomed in the long term because your
competitors can always undercut you on price without any loss in
quality.
Depends on your definition of "coercive and extortionate", I suppose. Take
the computer game industry, for example. Most games are one-shot deals.
You won't have enterprises buying support contracts. You won't have users
paying for support. You won't even have users expecting continuous updates
over the next few years of the product. There are some exceptions to this
(Blizzard, for example, semi-regularly releases updates to their game
Diablo), but most games are play-once-and-then-forget-about-forever.
Different games take different approaches to restricting access to the
software. Some uses virtual device drivers that take over your CD drive to
try to differentiate between original CDs and copied ones; others have you
enter a serial number which is then verified online; yet others just
release the game without any software copyprotection at all, relying on
the "honesty" of the Internet (or more cynically, on the guilt that might
be generated in pirates).
The latter of these, I would certainly not consider to be coercive nor
extortionate.
Microsoft is learning this lesson right now. They're reaching
for any legal bludgeon they can invent (software patents for example,
or a "trusted computing" mandate) to kill open source competitors by
criminalizing them, all because they cannot compete in a fair and open
market.
It was recently fashionable to demonize Microsoft, such that a lot of
accusations thrown their way was unfair. I think that trend has died a
little bit, but I still see the occasional blogs with one entry saying
"Vista sucks" and followed by another entry saying "I've never tried Vista
and I never will".
First of all, anthropophormizing corporations is dangerous, because it
then becomes extremely tempting to assign emotions to them (e.g. fear,
jealousy, envy, anger, etc.) and then to try to make predictions about
their future behaviour based on what emotions they are supposedly
experiencing.
I think a much more accurate model is to think of corporations as a
perfectly rational utilitarian whose sole metric is profit. There's no
good vs evil, moral vs immoral issues to enter into the consideration of a
coporation's "mind". It's solely about what action can maximize profits.
Keeping that in mind makes it much easier to understand Microsoft's (or
any corporation's) actions. They break the law when the profit they gain
from doing so outweighs the penalties they'd pay. They embrace Open Source
when it's profitable to do so (Windows XP has some BSD licensed code in
it, for example), and they try to stiffle competitors of all form (open
source or otherwise) *when it is profitable to do so*. Honestly, I don't
think Microsoft is very concerned about losing the desktop market to
Linux, so they aren't spending much resource in fighting it there (the
reason being the expenses paid in "fighting" Linux will be greater than
profits from the marketshare regained). They might be more concerned with
Apache vs IIS, and so you do see a lot of marketing in that area (I see a
lot of banners citing IIS is better than Apache, for example).
To address the patents issue in particular, because of the way patent law
is set up, if you're a big company, you are essentially forced to horde up
on so called "defensive patents". It's a like a cold war, where none of
the big corporations sue each other, for fear of getting sued in return.
That's the way the rules were set up, and Microsoft (and other
corporations, like IBM, Sun, etc.) are just playing the smart strategy
according to those rules. Again, it's fallacious to think in terms of
"evil corporations hate our freedom, that's why they patent everything"
versus "acquiring patents is the action with the highest utility at this
point".
Only aggressive marketing and questionable business practises
enabled them to become rich in the first place, that and a lack of
access to alternatives for most consumers for a long time before
widespread access to broadband developed in the industrialized parts
of the world.
Drop the keyword "only" and I'll be in agreement with you.
And for the OP: I wouldn't care too much about crackers and key
generators. Unless your software /really/ catches on the problems
arising from these guys are marginal.
Anybody using such wasn't ever going to pay for the software anyway.
Actually, scratch that -- some of those using such methods would never
pay no matter what. Making it harder might force them to use a
competitor's software but it won't get your hand into their pockets
successfully. On the other hand, some of those who crack it might
later pay, if they derive benefit from the software and decide it's
worth subsidizing its further development and maintenance. More than
those who just play with your crippled free version, who will just be
annoyed by random and arbitrary restrictions and have a generally
terrible user experience that will put them off ever sending you a
dime.
On the other hand, I know some people who had pirated Windows XP, but
are going to pay for Windows Vista simply because Vista is too much of a
pain to pirate. It's like Roedy said (and it echos a dogma in the security
industry as a whole): Perfect security is impossible. The goal isn't to
attain perfect security. The goal is to make it such that the least
painful solution is to just go ahead and pay for the software so that this
will be what all rational people (who always choose the least painful/most
pleasurable of all options) end up doing.
[snip some creative ideas for making money; I've no comments or arguments
against that]
- Oliver