Quid Pro Quo

There is nothing more frustrating than working hard on an application only to have it pirated.

You spend your time writing an application with 100,000+ lines of code, testing and debuging, creating the installation package so it will install properly on any computer, laying out and writing the help file, updating the website (or creating a new website if needed), writing the PAD file, submitting the application to 10's of shareware sites to get exposure, and coming up with the payment options only to have it cracked. All that hard work and thousands and thousands of users got it for free.

Isn't the downloads good exposure for the application? Yes its good exposure but downloading the application takes bandwidth and bandwidth costs money. Plus there's the factor that you worked so hard only to have people get it for free. Kinda takes away the inspiration to develop the software any further.

Sure I could go out and buy some big, expensive component to protect my software from being cracked but what good what would that do. Its hard to justify the cost when most off-the-shelf components have been cracked and I could find tutorials on most for cracking software.

So what is a small time developer to do?

One option I have considered, and started using in some of my applications, is to turn the software into Donationware software. Seeker is the first application that I have turned from Shareware to Donationware. What this means is that anyone wanting a registration key only needs to make a donation, of any size. Hopefully this will deter piracy as any donation size gets you a legally registered version of my software.

We'll see if this makes any difference.

Now some people may not have the means to make a donation (no credit card or ability to make an online payment) so how do I handle these users? What I am considering for future releases of Seeker or Cfont Pro is to expand the definition of Donationware.

The new definition of Donatioware would be as simple as the latin statement: Quid pro quo which translates to "This for That". This means that I would give out registration codes for something of value, to me, in return. As a developer there are several things I can receive that are of value;

• Money to aid in off setting the development costs
  
• Bug reports so I can make the software more stable
  
• Feature request so I can make software that my users want
• Place a review on software sites like Download.com or FileForum since this attracts new users

Some developers would never go the Donationware route and I can understand that. You work hard and spend many hours on an application and you want to get some return on your investment. For these developers you need to work hard on protecting your software.

Here are a few helpful tips:

• Read "Defending Shareware Against Cracks"
• What ever you come up with keep to yourself. The best protection in an undocument, custom protection scheme
• Shy away from commercial components as the best crackerz have come across most commercial components and already know how to bypass
• Check out the tips at "How to Protect Better"
• Change things with each new release

When it comes down to it, if they want to crack it bad enough you won't be able to stop it.

Back to developing the next big thing...