I think that just as our friendly hackers demonstrate, there really is no overall point in trying to protect your software from people who want to break it or open it up or unlock it or make it fully functional or distribute it without charge to others. You can only do so much and they can only be small preventative measures to make it `a challenge` or a little bit difficult for `most` people to do, but someone somewhere is still going to have the perspective and angle of thought that cuts right through anything you do to try and conceal your product. If your product were right out in the open without any restrictions whatsoever, there would be no incentive to hack it because it would have no purpose. Protecting software invites hacking and the two go hand in hand. Whenever there is software protection there will be hackers to undo it.
The question then is how can you be profitable selling software if you let it be so open that everyone can partake of it more or less freely as they choose? That's where you have to get creative and come up with a new model. How could you be profitable without having `closed` software? How can truly OPEN software and free software (as in freedom), be profitable? Presumably maybe you could deliver the software for free but have it so that people pay for support or for extra data or add-on packs etc. .. but either way you still wont be able to stop someone stealing it if they choose to do so. Fact of life. The only way that `trade` can function purely and honestly is if both the vendor and the customer are pure and honest. Then there can be trust. Otherwise there cannot be trust, everything gets clamped down, there is a neverending pointless war of attempted software protection and resulting reasons to hack, and the inevitable pretention creation of what they call `trusted computing`, which has nothing to do with trust at all.
I think you can only safely make money from trustworthy honest people. I think you should focus on attracting those kinds of people as much as possible, and not focus on trying to resist or prevent the other less ethical individuals. What you focus on increases and is attracted to you, so best to put your focus squarely where you really want it - on attracting people who are going to be good customers and pay honestly and value your product respectfully so that they don't steal it or abuse it.
You are going to get some clever fellow who thinks it's fun to find a way of looking at your software from such an angle as to see through or find ways around your efforts to make things difficult for them, and they enjoy the challenge. You can't stop them, and it actually would be unethical to try to force them to stop having free will. You have to accept that they are going to do it if they are so inclined, instead of fearing it or trying to hide from it. I'm not saying to be blind or overly optimistic or just ignore that they're going to do it. Be aware some people will choose to bring you down, pick yourself up and put your focus where you really want it. After all, you do create your own reality, and you do attract the kinds of people that you and your product resonate with, so maybe if you are focussing on the right thing you just won't get those kind of pirates knocking at your door. No victims here.
The question then is how can you be profitable selling software if you let it be so open that everyone can partake of it more or less freely as they choose? That's where you have to get creative and come up with a new model. How could you be profitable without having `closed` software? How can truly OPEN software and free software (as in freedom), be profitable? Presumably maybe you could deliver the software for free but have it so that people pay for support or for extra data or add-on packs etc. .. but either way you still wont be able to stop someone stealing it if they choose to do so. Fact of life. The only way that `trade` can function purely and honestly is if both the vendor and the customer are pure and honest. Then there can be trust. Otherwise there cannot be trust, everything gets clamped down, there is a neverending pointless war of attempted software protection and resulting reasons to hack, and the inevitable pretention creation of what they call `trusted computing`, which has nothing to do with trust at all.
I think you can only safely make money from trustworthy honest people. I think you should focus on attracting those kinds of people as much as possible, and not focus on trying to resist or prevent the other less ethical individuals. What you focus on increases and is attracted to you, so best to put your focus squarely where you really want it - on attracting people who are going to be good customers and pay honestly and value your product respectfully so that they don't steal it or abuse it.
You are going to get some clever fellow who thinks it's fun to find a way of looking at your software from such an angle as to see through or find ways around your efforts to make things difficult for them, and they enjoy the challenge. You can't stop them, and it actually would be unethical to try to force them to stop having free will. You have to accept that they are going to do it if they are so inclined, instead of fearing it or trying to hide from it. I'm not saying to be blind or overly optimistic or just ignore that they're going to do it. Be aware some people will choose to bring you down, pick yourself up and put your focus where you really want it. After all, you do create your own reality, and you do attract the kinds of people that you and your product resonate with, so maybe if you are focussing on the right thing you just won't get those kind of pirates knocking at your door. No victims here.