December 23, 2009 07:24
Hi Jeffrey,
My issue is with software that seems to punish and/or inconvenience paying customers. I once had a problem with an application (that I paid for and licensed) not working because I simply upgraded some hardware and attempted to re-install. It's not acceptable that I need to sit on the phone to some call centre in India and wait while they sort it out. The people that don't have these issues are the ones downloading cracked copies. I "upgraded" myself to a cracked copy of the same software, because it was one less thing to worry about for future hardware upgrades(or failures).
It's a similar situation with hardware dongles. You won't find any pirates (running the same software) with useless dongles hanging off their USB ports. I also know at least one person who has a legit Maxsea 12 license, but needs to run a dongle emulator so he can free up one of his only USB ports.
Apple is one of the few companies to (at least partially) acknowledge that all of these protection schemes are ineffective. There's no client version of Mac OS X with serial numbers, activation schemes, or restrictions on number of installs.
Re: Maxsea TZ. I have yet to pirate anything that's running on the boat computer, dodgy protection-schemes or not. I suppose because in some ways the software could contribute to our general safety and well-being.
Also, I believe the reason we don't see any bootleg copies of MSTZ could be because of its relative obscurity, not the serial number and copy protection. Even the best protection on the largest software suites almost always ends up cracked.
I've had some real "licensing" issues recently (and in the past), which was what led to my little rant. I should've kept it out of the thread.
Anyhow... are you currently running TZ? Americans are sure lucky to get such nice chart coverage and sat photos. I hope they're planning to upgrade our part of the world. It's no wonder they don't include screen-shots or videos of regions beyond USA/Europe!
My issue is with software that seems to punish and/or inconvenience paying customers. I once had a problem with an application (that I paid for and licensed) not working because I simply upgraded some hardware and attempted to re-install. It's not acceptable that I need to sit on the phone to some call centre in India and wait while they sort it out. The people that don't have these issues are the ones downloading cracked copies. I "upgraded" myself to a cracked copy of the same software, because it was one less thing to worry about for future hardware upgrades(or failures).
It's a similar situation with hardware dongles. You won't find any pirates (running the same software) with useless dongles hanging off their USB ports. I also know at least one person who has a legit Maxsea 12 license, but needs to run a dongle emulator so he can free up one of his only USB ports.
Apple is one of the few companies to (at least partially) acknowledge that all of these protection schemes are ineffective. There's no client version of Mac OS X with serial numbers, activation schemes, or restrictions on number of installs.
Re: Maxsea TZ. I have yet to pirate anything that's running on the boat computer, dodgy protection-schemes or not. I suppose because in some ways the software could contribute to our general safety and well-being.
Also, I believe the reason we don't see any bootleg copies of MSTZ could be because of its relative obscurity, not the serial number and copy protection. Even the best protection on the largest software suites almost always ends up cracked.
I've had some real "licensing" issues recently (and in the past), which was what led to my little rant. I should've kept it out of the thread.
Anyhow... are you currently running TZ? Americans are sure lucky to get such nice chart coverage and sat photos. I hope they're planning to upgrade our part of the world. It's no wonder they don't include screen-shots or videos of regions beyond USA/Europe!