Jack, I saw Courtney's earlier post that mentioned the software piracy of DXbase issue. It really burns my xxx that we have thieves out there and while I know it's costly to prosecute, I think you ought to go after anyone once you have the evidence needed. I've heard of some attorney's who will do this pro-bono as well. Think they are funded by the Software Piracy Association.
Anyway, if it were my business, I would take whatever steps you can to help reduce this. It occurs to me that as long as you distribute the software on disks or CDs, that the thieves are going to steal it. So seems to me that as a first step, you gotta stop sending it out on CD. There are some pretty good encryption packages out there that allow people to download and install from the web. I know some of them have been cracked, but usually they got cracked because the encryption wasn't implemented as well as it could have been. They usually come in two flavors: 1. User can download and install but it will only run on the machine that they install it to. Much like Microsoft XP where it is tied to hardware and that's that. If user changes major hardware, then they gotta re-register. Perhaps you could allow a user to run on up to two machines for one fee, and an additional fee for more than two machines. Just because someone owns 71 machines doesn't mean they gotta run DXbase on each one of them... hihi... 2. User can download crippled version and must get a key from you to unlock all the features. This helps some, but then somebody could just give the key away to their buddies and your back to having the thieves steal your work. In either of these cases, users can download it as often as they want without additional charge as long as they are registered. There may be some good reason for objecting to either of the above, but I can't think of any unless you are the pirate trying to insure that you can continue to pirate somebody else's work. Again, if it was me, I'd go with option 1 and let the thieves start spending their money for DXbase or else go steal someone else's product. Just my two cents worth of opinion. By the way, I also saw the comments about dropping upgrade support for old database formats. It never occured to me but I like this idea too. If someone opts to skip upgrades, then it's only fair that they pay the additional cost for their decision. Why should I pay ( indirectly ) for someone else's decision. I say, support importing from only the previous version and if somebody needs support for older versions, then sell them the conversion package. I can't imagine why somebody would skip any of the last few upgrades anyway. They were crammed with lots of nice improvements and well worth the few dollars to upgrade. Just doesn't make sense, but oh well. de Joe WA6AXE
