I guess I misunderstood your point the first time. Your logic makes sense, and like I said before I understand your points about how the paying customer suffers. But after re-reading both your comments now I’m not sure how you even came to the idea that VMware’s time bomb was implemented to protect from piracy. Paul Maritz explained in his blog post:

“This piece of code was left over from the pre-release versions of Update 2 and was designed to ensure that customers are running on the supported generally available version of Update 2.”

I don’t take that to mean they were focused on stopping theft, but instead wanted to guarantee a bug free version was generally available and in use. That’s more about VMware having to support their customers and making sure their help desk infrastructure gets calls about the correct builds. It makes the whole issue more ironic, I know, but in my mind it is an acceptable development and product release process. It’s definitely unacceptable QA testing to leave it enabled, however.

I guess I misunderstood your point the first time. Your logic makes sense, and like I said before I understand your points about how the paying customer suffers. But after re-reading both your comments now I’m not sure how you even came to the idea that VMware’s time bomb was implemented to protect from piracy. Paul Maritz explained in his blog post:

“This piece of code was left over from the pre-release versions of Update 2 and was designed to ensure that customers are running on the supported generally available version of Update 2.”

I don’t take that to mean they were focused on stopping theft, but instead wanted to guarantee a bug free version was generally available and in use. That’s more about VMware having to support their customers and making sure their help desk infrastructure gets calls about the correct builds. It makes the whole issue more ironic, I know, but in my mind it is an acceptable development and product release process. It’s definitely unacceptable QA testing to leave it enabled, however.

the problem happens when you attempt to actually “stop” the pirating by making the copy protection scheme really complex and difficult. #1 you don’t actually slow the pirates down (like I said, just check torrent, heck they already hacked bluray and HDDVD) and #2, the harder the protection scheme is the bigger a problem it becomes for your PAYING customer.

Adobe and Microsoft’s activation schemes have gotten so bad its forcing some people to look at different products.

Basically, all I’m saying is a bug that causes the kind of problem sucks. A bug that causes this kind of problem related to the licensing of the product is unacceptable.

the problem happens when you attempt to actually “stop” the pirating by making the copy protection scheme really complex and difficult. #1 you don’t actually slow the pirates down (like I said, just check torrent, heck they already hacked bluray and HDDVD) and #2, the harder the protection scheme is the bigger a problem it becomes for your PAYING customer.

Adobe and Microsoft’s activation schemes have gotten so bad its forcing some people to look at different products.

Basically, all I’m saying is a bug that causes the kind of problem sucks. A bug that causes this kind of problem related to the licensing of the product is unacceptable.

You bring up some good points about how the damage can be done to the one’s that need to be protected. However, I can’t blame VMware, Microsoft, or any company for wanting it’s customers to buy licenses and pay for support, and then enforcing it. Do you work for free?

Your argument that it’s an inconvenience for paying customers and it’s easy for a pirate to crack anyways won’t exactly protect your “booty” in court!

You bring up some good points about how the damage can be done to the one’s that need to be protected. However, I can’t blame VMware, Microsoft, or any company for wanting it’s customers to buy licenses and pay for support, and then enforcing it. Do you work for free?

Your argument that it’s an inconvenience for paying customers and it’s easy for a pirate to crack anyways won’t exactly protect your “booty” in court!

Both of these issues I think underscore a major problem in the PC industry and its the near psychotic need to implement draconian protection schemes. The pirates have proven what a waste of time such schemes are (you often see popular software on torrent before its available in the store, all pre-cracked and ready to use). It doesn’t even seem to slow them down most of the time. Instead all it does is inconvenience and sometimes severely damage the paying customer!

VMware’s comment about “no licensing backdoor” shows they are more concerned with protecting their (faulty) licensing scheme then protecting their enterprise customers. Its even more baffling when you consider the niche this product fills. It’s not exactly a mass market piece of software that needs to fend off the causal pirate. How many organizations would really be running a pirate copy of a 5,000$ piece of software?

I’m just waiting for the evidential shift to microsoft/adobe style “activation”.

Both of these issues I think underscore a major problem in the PC industry and its the near psychotic need to implement draconian protection schemes. The pirates have proven what a waste of time such schemes are (you often see popular software on torrent before its available in the store, all pre-cracked and ready to use). It doesn’t even seem to slow them down most of the time. Instead all it does is inconvenience and sometimes severely damage the paying customer!

VMware’s comment about “no licensing backdoor” shows they are more concerned with protecting their (faulty) licensing scheme then protecting their enterprise customers. Its even more baffling when you consider the niche this product fills. It’s not exactly a mass market piece of software that needs to fend off the causal pirate. How many organizations would really be running a pirate copy of a 5,000$ piece of software?

I’m just waiting for the evidential shift to microsoft/adobe style “activation”.