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I believe you should absolutely disable pirated copies, and try to make sure the pirate users know they've been caught. Honesty compels me to mention that my mo

I believe you should absolutely disable pirated copies, and try to make sure the pirate users know they've been caught. Honesty compels me to mention that my motivation for this is not that I believe it will help your business; it is that I believe the major obstacle to widespread conscious adoption of free, open source software by end users is that piracy of proprietary software is widely tolerated. If proprietary software made more effort to prevent unauthorized copying and use, it would really drive adoption of FOSS.

dholowiski 16y ago
That's great, you're telling him that he should enable the copy protection so that his software, and all closed source software, will fail?
- rick_2047 16y ago
  They will not fail, but the Open source alternatives will get more consideration.
  - rick888 16y ago
    "They will not fail, but the Open source alternatives will get more consideration." If you are willing to use an app that doesn't work as well, has less support, and you aren't willing to pay $1 or less (which is what I imagine the OP's app costs), then go for it. Aside from a few things (apache, php, mysql, linux), I generally use open source in the beginning when I'm trying to cut costs..but almost always end up going with a proprietary solution when I need to get serious about it. Open source has it's place, but it's not the software utopia that the community claims it to be. Security is the #1 misconception. The claim is that it's more secure because there are "more eyes looking at the code". If you look at any major open source project, there is usually a core set of developers that actually make any set of changes to the main core. Combined this with the fact that 90% of the project users don't know enough/anything about coding to make any changes and the odds of getting security changes fixed are probably around the same as a proprietary application. Most users also don't update (proprietary or open source)..contributing to insecure software. I can't tell you how many Wordpress installations I've seen out there that are using sub 3.X/insecure versions.
- mycroftiv 16y ago
  I actually don't know whether or not it would help his business or harm it. I suspect (without research) that applications which gain utility in proportion to the size of their userbase are probably helped by piracy more then they are hurt, but niche applications that perform a specialized function and have a small target audience are badly hurt by it. My comment was mostly intended as a thought-provoker.
rick888 16y ago
"If proprietary software made more effort to prevent unauthorized copying and use, it would really drive adoption of FOSS." You would think so, but it never does. Mostly because proprietary apps usually do a better job with support, easy of use, and general features. Photoshop is still king even though GIMP has been free for many years.
- bendmorris 16y ago
  I'd wager that Photoshop is also one of the most frequently pirated applications of all time.

dholowiski 16y ago

That's great, you're telling him that he should enable the copy protection so that his software, and all closed source software, will fail?

rick_2047 16y ago
They will not fail, but the Open source alternatives will get more consideration.
- rick888 16y ago
  "They will not fail, but the Open source alternatives will get more consideration." If you are willing to use an app that doesn't work as well, has less support, and you aren't willing to pay $1 or less (which is what I imagine the OP's app costs), then go for it. Aside from a few things (apache, php, mysql, linux), I generally use open source in the beginning when I'm trying to cut costs..but almost always end up going with a proprietary solution when I need to get serious about it. Open source has it's place, but it's not the software utopia that the community claims it to be. Security is the #1 misconception. The claim is that it's more secure because there are "more eyes looking at the code". If you look at any major open source project, there is usually a core set of developers that actually make any set of changes to the main core. Combined this with the fact that 90% of the project users don't know enough/anything about coding to make any changes and the odds of getting security changes fixed are probably around the same as a proprietary application. Most users also don't update (proprietary or open source)..contributing to insecure software. I can't tell you how many Wordpress installations I've seen out there that are using sub 3.X/insecure versions.
mycroftiv 16y ago
I actually don't know whether or not it would help his business or harm it. I suspect (without research) that applications which gain utility in proportion to the size of their userbase are probably helped by piracy more then they are hurt, but niche applications that perform a specialized function and have a small target audience are badly hurt by it. My comment was mostly intended as a thought-provoker.

rick888 16y ago

"If proprietary software made more effort to prevent unauthorized copying and use, it would really drive adoption of FOSS." You would think so, but it never does. Mostly because proprietary apps usually do a better job with support, easy of use, and general features. Photoshop is still king even though GIMP has been free for many years.

bendmorris 16y ago
I'd wager that Photoshop is also one of the most frequently pirated applications of all time.