[Stryke 9]

*sigh*

I ASK you... What are these software manufacturers THINKING with these security options? I mean, take something simple (the problem I have now, incidentially), like a serial number requirement. I'm sure that somewhere out there, a warez kiddie is getting stumped by a dialog box that pops up demanding a serial number before the prog can run. But is that single abysmally stupid adolescent reason enough to harass potentially hundreds of your customers who (in my case) legitimately purchased a copy and then lost the Windows registry, and can no longer find the CD? Are such measures really effective enough preventatives that they're worth the eventual cost that comes when most of these people go online, eventually find a serial crack, and in the process are immersed in the big, wide world of what warez can really do? Are they somehow preventing enough competent, skilled hobby pirates who reverse-engineer OSes and hack government systems in their spare time from cracking their pathetic little system that it justifies alienating most of their customer base? I didn't know a fraction of the **** that could easily be found online until I had to go and find a crack for these goddamn security measures, and there's not even really a way to GET a warez copy of something without the serial number unless you DOWNLOAD IT FROM THE VERY SITES THAT SOLVE PEOPLES' PROBLEMS WITH THE SECURITY SOFTWARE. Which only a relatively small community of dedicated pirates WOULD know about and WOULD be able to get to if it weren't for such wonders of technology as the buggy security program, the excessive, poorly-supported locking system that takes up almost as much space as the program itself and is about as easy to get through as one of Houdini's traps, the need to keep the CD in the drive at all times (often ALSO buggy), and the serial number prompt. Jerky little kids and a tendency towards crime never created the problems with warez that so many software companiess ***** about. Their own security routines to prevent against warez did.

Thunder: Yeah, I know this topic mentions warez. But I'm not promoting it (quite the reverse) or soliciting, I just wanted to look into this aspect of it. After all, this is the second time this month that I've had an issue with a security routine (and only the third piece of software I've had to wrangle with this month at that), and I honestly find out more stuff it would have never occurred to me even existed each time. This trend is... just wrong, and I wanna, at the very least, kvetch like an old woman about it. At best, argue with someone.

[Shrike]

I love how posts now have to have little disclaimers asking Thunder to not close them.  

[CP5670]

I wholeheartedly agree with you on all of that. They used to have "copy protection" where the user had to enter random crap from the manual; now there is this serial number and "online authorization" mania.

[Alikchi]

Agreed.
Blah.

[Thorn]

*shrug*
They aren't likely to change... deal with it.....

[IceFire]

I love how posts now have to have little disclaimers asking Thunder to not close them.

I've got the same rep over at VWBB...except its just one person who is afraid .  Feel special Thunder, very special

[Stryke 9]

Well... normally I would feel it was unnecessary, but I've essentially been threatened with banning recently, so...

[Martinus]

Lets face it, you all know he only kills really pointless or idiotic threads, stop making it look like an issue.

If it involves zombification, Pr0n or anything stupid you know it's going to get killed by one of us.


Everyone should know what falls within the boundarys of good taste and fairness; unless of course you actually found the VBB a more stimulating environment.

[Stryke 9]

I know that- you really don't think I knew that, say, all the zombie topics were gonna get locked? Why do you think I only went for ones I didn't like?

Anyway, that's not the point. There is a line. It's defined relatively well here. However, I've seen people get toasted for simply MENTIONING warez before, and I've seen topics get locked for mentioning them here. Thus, I'm playing it safe and making it clear my intent is legitimate- if only because I get the feeling that I need ot give it at least another month before I start rampaging again.

Anyway, back on off-topic.

[Fineus]

Apologies for digressing from the topic as soon as I post on it but half of it has swung towards my locking habbits (again ) Anyways, I have no problems with people talking about security protection. None, zip. Nada.

However talking about ways to get round security protection - including cracks, websites or any other technique under the sun - that's warez. And you all know what I think of that

My point is - I don't mind certain forms of topics - but other forms are bad... working out which is which is what people seem to have trouble with.

Anyways... meh...

[Pera]

Originally posted by Thunder
However talking about ways to get round security protection - including cracks, websites or any other technique under the sun - that's warez. And you all know what I think of that

Yes, we most definitely do

BUT, if you legally own the program, how is going around security protection "warez"?

[Top Gun]

Microsoft are abusive monopolistic scumbags, don't expect anything less from them, silly. You buy from people like Microsoft, you can expect to be treated like crap.

[Kellan]

Originally posted by Top Gun
Microsoft are abusive monopolistic scumbags, don't expect anything less from them, silly. You buy from people like Microsoft, you can expect to be treated like crap.

And you talk like we have a wide range of choices....

[wEvil]

My opinion on people over-protecting their ideas is just another indication of how everything in general is going to crap.


Someone comes up with an idea that may be worth something.  He/She is SO scared (yes, SCARED) of someone "stealing" this idea that they go to great lengths to make sure nobody else can squeeze half a roubel out of it.

Fifty years later...well..someone else comes along, looks at this idea and improves it by some rediculous amount.  Except they can't sell it because the paranoid moron who copyrighted it in the first place is STILL too scared to let anyone do anything.

The result?

Nobody makes any money, and probably there'd be a lot of bad feeling left over.


I own a copy of windows 2000, hell - i'm going to own a copy of softimage XSI 2.0 as soon as I scrape the cash together to buy it.  

Does that stop me using codes and cracks?  no.

Any reasonable individual or company will immediately tell you they don't care (if you want to learn their software).  Of course if you want to use it to make money then they all go ballistic.

Unfortunately, its' not us these people are fighting.  It's the dodgy skinheads that make 500 copies of the program and sell it, fiver a pop in a market sall.  Those are the people (I use the term "people" in the widest possible sense of the word because they are, for all intents and purposes, distinctly sub-human) that are "crippling" the industry.

Just read the NFO file on any warez release.  They tell you to go out and buy it if you find it that useful.  Same thing with films...i saw a pre-release of spiderman about two months before it was due in this country - it rocked.   I'm going to buy the DVD or at least see it at the cinema once because I want more of this and i'm happy to pay for quality entertainment.

I wouldn't, however, go out and pay to see Star Wars :AOTC (again) because it was a pile of rubbish.

People dont realise theres a great, big rift between software PIRACY (the market stall guy), and software SHARING (getting someone a copy of something because they want to try it out, they need it desperately etc).

One if for financial gain.  The other is because you want to make life easier for the someone.

[an0n]

Originally posted by Kellan
And you talk like we have a wide range of choices....

You will have soon. There a company that's making an OS called Lindows that'll run Linux, Unix and Windows programs. Microsoft have tried to sue them to get the name changed but so what? As soon as that comes out it'll give an alternative to Windows that people like Sun will support and it'll let Windows people get used to Linux commands in preparation for the final slaughter of Microsoft........making all Unix based webservers completely incompatible with IE or anything MS. Mwuahahahaha. By the time they'd been sued for unfair business practices Microsoft would be so crippled it'd never recover and fade into bankrupcy.

[Fineus]

Trouble is your average Joe won't know how to run anything that isn't as "user friendly" as Windows. I know I'm scared to leave it for Linux or whatever because of compatability issues with using other software and how it won't run with anything but Windows. I know that's not breaking their monopoly but a lot of people aren't willing to go through the trouble just to use something different.

[an0n]

I've got a double boot with Windows 98SE and Redhat 7.1, and in a few days (hopefully) I'll have a tripple boot with FreeBSD 4.5 as well . Only thing is, the modem that NTL supplied for my broadband connection is a piece of **** that only works with Windows. So I'm either going to have to piss around changing driver files, buy a new cable modem or connect with a 56k (*shudders*).

[Top Gun]

Red hat are normally very good reguarding compatibility issues. They have most of the drivers included in their CDs. The downside of this is that it's a monstrosity to download in terms of filesize (but no where near as bad as windows for bloat).


On Lindows: Microsoft did not only fail to sue Lindows, they lost their trade mark of the Word Windows when the Judge deemed it a generic word (I think).



Thunder: KDE 3 (very pretty looking DE) and GNOME (more simplistic looking DE) make everything nice 'n' easy plus they look great. Red hat comes with a brilliant installer. so does Mandrake. Mandrake's one lets you play solitaire during the install, I'm not sure about the rest but they're mostly text based installs (Note: you can have the option of text based installing with the GUI installers). Dual booting with them is as easy as pie and all the stuff they throw in with it comes in rpm packages (.nix's answet to the self extractor) if you want. NVidia, provide drivers for the whole G force range and generally the most popular hardware is well supported.


Each distro has it's own unique characteristics:  Red Hat: Aimed at schools and corporations. Easy to install and run with loads of drivers and if you order the CD you get support (from red hat itself). Mandrake: Probably the most User Friendly, It has a brilliant installer and is probably well supported, in terms of hardware. Debian: Is the nerdy option. It's Evangelically true to the original intentions of RMS and I think it's less user friendly. There are many more though, not to mention the three BSDs (free, open and net). Enjoy

[Stryke 9]

wEvil: True... but those guys who do it for money ain't too popular. I've seen... maybe two for-profit setups total, and one was trying very hard to disguise the fact that they weren't legit. Thing is, most people DO realize that you can simply go online and SOMEWHERE out there you can get the same product for free you'd be paying some ripper asshole $30 for. I don't think most people who haven't been exposed to warez know that you can just run a search engine and find a good hundred sites that trade warez openly, but they know it's there and that means they'll give pause to paying for an already illegal version.

And Linux? Problem is, only 3% of computers or something like that use Linux. Mighta been even less, but I remember it being about there. Apple stuff gets another 3%, but first of all they package their OS with their own computers, which most of the major graphics companies have market towards (I suppose they're better dollar-for-dollar at graphics apps than most PCs, I really don't know), so many other companies follow suit. That, and alll the preeeety coolors. Linux, on the other hand, has neither the reputation of coming with for-some-reason-good computers, nor for being idiot-proof (which the Apple OS is not, it just fails to be in a completely different and less irritating way than Windows 2000). Thus, it doesn't have an instant consumer base who'd buy it even if it did cost money- the computer-illiterate, particularly CG artists- so no bog software companies support it, so nobody, in the end, wants it. If Linux let me play TMP and Homeworld, use Photoshop (NOT The Gimp or any of that knockoff junk) and 3DS MAX, and didn't royally **** up my computer as much as Windows errors have, I'd jump at the chance to get a copy- hell, I'd even pay for it. But it's not compatible, so I won't. I think this is, basically, the case with Linux everywhere- everyone who knows something about computers and about Linux probably has thought of getting it, but it can't yet allow the kind of software flexibility that Windows, with its 2 billion products built for it, can, so they won't drop Windows. Get me a platform that can run Windows apps flawlessly, that doesn't utterly suck like Windows does, and I'll take it. But that first condition is everything.

[an0n]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
And Linux? Problem is, only 3% of computers or something like that use Linux. Mighta been even less, but I remember it being about there.

~-=! WTF!?! 60% of the internet is *nix and a whole ****-load of people have got *nix.!=-~

Apple stuff gets another 3%, but first of all they package their OS with their own computers, which most of the major graphics companies have market towards (I suppose they're better dollar-for-dollar at graphics apps than most PCs, I really don't know), so many other companies follow suit. That, and alll the preeeety coolors.

~-=! An old Apple Macintosh can still beat the crap out of Windows XP for graphic and video editting. The reason MacOS only ships with Apple computers is because there's something fundamentally different in the components. !=-~

Linux, on the other hand, has neither the reputation of coming with for-some-reason-good computers, nor for being idiot-proof (which the Apple OS is not, it just fails to be in a completely different and less irritating way than Windows 2000).

~-=! The reason you don't see sparkly new computers with Linux installed is because generally, Linux people are geeks and build their own computers so there's no market. Anyway, a few place are starting to give you the option of getting Win of RH pre-installed. You can only really ****-up Linux if you're dumb enough to use the Admin account as your regular account. From the Admin account you can pretty much nuke the computer but if you log in as a normal user (and save the Admin account for installing new CD drives and stuff) then it's only as breakable as Windows. !=-~

Thus, it doesn't have an instant consumer base who'd buy it even if it did cost money- the computer-illiterate, particularly CG artists- so no bog software companies support it, so nobody, in the end, wants it.

~-=! Meh !=-~

If Linux let me play TMP and Homeworld, use Photoshop (NOT The Gimp or any of that knockoff junk) and 3DS MAX, and didn't royally **** up my computer as much as Windows errors have, I'd jump at the chance to get a copy- hell, I'd even pay for it. But it's not compatible, so I won't. I think this is, basically, the case with Linux everywhere- everyone who knows something about computers and about Linux probably has thought of getting it, but it can't yet allow the kind of software flexibility that Windows, with its 2 billion products built for it, can, so they won't drop Windows. Get me a platform that can run Windows apps flawlessly, that doesn't utterly suck like Windows does, and I'll take it. But that first condition is everything.

~-=! The massive variation between each distro means that making super-duper programs like MAX becomes damn near impossible as it would most likely not work on a lot of systems. If they'd just friggin unify everything then all would be well, but no, they bicker and compete. Dumbasses. !=-~