Software Piracy, How Far is too Far?
The news has hit today, from a number of sites, almost all of which are pointing to the article posted at Unsanity.org as their source, that an independent software developer has imbedded his code with a booby-trap.
Type in a pirated serial number, it erases your home directory.
For those of you who are not on Macs or Linux, the home directory, by default, stores your desktop, all your mp3s, all your application preferences, all your mail, your bookmarks, all your photos, anything you saved to “My Documents”…
In other words, a lot of stuff.
Right up front, let’s get this clear:
- This was not established, nor terribly popular software. It was however, mainstream enough to be featured on Apple’s own web site.
- The offending code has been removed (supposedly) and was only available for about 12 hours.
- The code DID trigger. People lost their data.
People who know me know that not all the software on my computer has been registered. Some of it has. When offered the choice between competing products of equal quality, I tend to to choose the free one. I plan to pay for Ecto (which I am using to post this). Also know that I have released shareware products that I wrote, and not only did several people register them, I found them on pirate sites. I didn’t get too torn up about it. I don’t think anyone ever heard me complain even one time about it. All in all, I was astounded by the number of people who DID register.
What this developer did was unconscionable. Without some reason to believe that trial software is safe, non commercial software development will die. I already run software that alerts me anytime any application attempts communication on the internet. I don’t want to be forced to run software that makes me OK writes to the hard drive.
Many sites, including Unsanity, are electing not to post this developer’s name. I haven’t decided yet. Yes, I know who he is. A little searching, and you can figure it out, too. Several things about this particular case just make me absolutely sick to my stomach.
- This software is based upon open source linux programs that are freely available to anyone who knows how to search for, and compile them. I question the amount of work the developer put into this product.
- The software has a feature set that appeals to, you guessed it: DVD pirates. So, I’m going to supply you a tool that allows you to pirate other people’s work more conveniently, but if you try to pirate MY work, I’ll erase your hard drive.
- How many times have you typoed a serial number? What if this had zapped one of his paying customers, who was guilty of nothing more than having fat fingers?
- The developer is in the United States, and therefore has committed a felony.
I don’t really know what else to say, I just read this story and was appalled. I am not the only one outraged, as the forums at the developer’s site have already been completely closed because of the level of abuse being posted there. no one deserves to have their work stolen, but it also perfectly reasonable to expect that if you write software for a living, yours will be. It is a cost of doing business. Price your product accordingly.
On a brighter note, stay tuned for some more fun Bush-Kerry thoughts later today.