I don't see where there is a problem. First, the interview was specifically about games and not WindowBlinds.-cthorpe
The
post was about "Stardock Doesn't Treat You Like a Criminal" and I was commenting on the post. And Stardock IS WindowBlinds, and has only started getting into games much more recently.
Furthermore, there is nothing in there that states, explicitly or implicitly, that the company is going to embrace pirates and treat them with the same respect as paying customers. The interview never states that Stardock is completely ignoring piracy problems. On top of that, users who had cracked versions of WindowBlinds and then were audacious enough to ask the company for technical support deserved to be berated. Perhaps it shouldn't have been done publically on the forums, but how would you handle someone who clearly stole something from you and then asked for help with it in public? You mention that some legitimate users suspected that it was anti-piracy features that caused then problems. Did any users ever find that it was, in fact, the crack blocking or did they just assume that it was the problem?
-cthorpe
Well, the original post title sure sounds like Stardock is not interested in piracy, to an extent. And for the record, I have no problem at all with Brad berating anyone for cracked software in the forum - as a matter of fact, I applaud it! His concern/outrage most certainly should be public! I mention that only because it was so public and yet this thread makes it sound like they do not worry about piracy, which is far from the truth.
However I do take issue with his methods. I abhor any developer planting a "bomb" in his code in order to try and combat piracy. Every time I have seen this done, legitimate users are the ones who seem to get hit the most. There are better, safer ways to protect your software than to put destructive code into it. Anytime developers cause pain to their users in the name of security they are putting their desire to hurt the pirates ahead of the convenience of their loyal users. I don't think there are many here at DC who are appreciative of that sort of "security".
And as for whether it was determined that his code caused other users - non-pirating users - problems with their computers? Not definitively with concrete proof as far as I know. Hard to prove exactly what internal code like that caused. After all, if it were easy to isolate that code and investigate it, then I imagine it would not have been so tough for the crackers to avoid it. What I DO know is that the reports by longtime Stardock users/forum members increased greatly after that version was released. And the code was reportedly removed in the next release and all those user problems seemed to stop spreading. BTW, the problem most valid software users were having had the exact same symptoms as the crackers were reporting - black screen issues that could not be resolved without reinstalling Windows. So it was not a minor annoyance to users.
And also, I was fortunate enough to not have had the problem, so this is not a rant because I was personally affected. I just found this thread's title to be humorous, not to mention ironic, in light of what I had seen back then.
Jim