not a good plan, because then you'll get what I call the Zip/Rar scenario, less than a day after the release it's cracked, the problem here is this;
The Nightmare Scenario
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Having been in a group many years ago, (when I was a child) I wasn't part of the illegal side of the group so don't worry about that too much, it was the general rule of thumb to the people that did, that small time software developers got left alone, by and large this is still in some cases the same, where as the larger companys the ones that could aford it got delt too, except in some cases.
The group was Digital Corruption or ^DC, and I was a member of the programming staff that delt with application development on the Amiga for the constuction of ICQ, it was my task in those days, to build a GUI interface for the protocal (MUI / ClassAct), we constantly batteled with Marabouls (spelling maybe incorrect) today it's called ICQ Inc. and to no avail, did they give us the protocal (we asked repeatedly & nicely, it was because of politics that Amiga wasn't a viable machine), so we resorted to other means to obtain it, without which today the Amiga wouldn't have had the kick start it needed to get ICQ going (any perhaps it might never have perhaps.), anyway that is the background for me being in such a group, in hynsight I probably shouldn't have joined it. (but kids do stuppid things.)
Now then, some software used to come in that was relitively unprotected or from a small time company, and was left alone. from time to time people would request it to be cracked but never was, it wasn't until the author applyed what is classed as medium to heavy security on it that there was a influx of masses of people request it to be cracked, which brought the attention of the people that delt with protection removal, and thus the software was then a pirority, eventually protection became so heavy that one of the people brought a copy, and distrobuted that instead, oh sure the key had the name of the person in it but it was obviously a fake name, but now they had a legit key to workout the algorythm, I think the author spent more time writting protection for his software than actually adding features, and ultimately went bust I believe the story goes.
The more unnoticed by crackers software is the better, and the only way to do that is to sercumvent the need for there attention, which means no protection at all, and just hope and pray that there are enough honest people out there, and they do exist!.
Once your in the RAR/Zip Scenario your software has attention, from the sounds of it PB in this case may do, although my searchings for such things have come to nothing, couldn't find a single one. ( this was after someone saying that there was a pluage of cracks on the net, so I went to see if they existed, not on my sights they do not. )
Question is here, does anyone here want poor Fred to be sitting at his PC dreaming up protection systems for PB instead of adding new features to it, because that is where it will end up.
The only real way to protect your software is not to allow anyone to have it, this I think is coming one day, where your PC turns on and logs onto
www.microsoft.com and your OS boots off of there servers, software you own is on there servers, your PC has a hard drive enough to store data you've created/made/saved yourself but not the software, when that day comes, piracy will be finally on the back foot.
Standard Disclamer [ this is a point of view ]
No, wait, I mean 'Any form of copy protection can be foiled eventually'. All you can really hope for is to make it difficult for the would-be pirate to copy. (The 'professional' pirates consider it a challenge and just keep trying).
