Why isn´t PureBasic Package copy protected ?

[Thorium]

It doesnt matters if its copy protected or not, ilegal copies are existing and will be existing in the future, a copyprotection does not change this at all. Also its wrong to think everyone that downloads a pirated version would buy it if no pirated version would be existing. Most people just search another similar software in that case.

Fred is one of the very few that actualy cares about his customers. If you don't want to care about them, thats fine, but let other people do there buisness the way they want.

[utopiomania]

Purebasic is copyprotected isn't it? You can download an unprotected copy from your account only, after
paying for it and registering. That's their copy protection, right?

[Thorium]

Purebasic is copyprotected isn't it? You can download an unprotected copy from your account only, after
paying for it and registering. That's their copy protection, right?

Yes and no. There are some retail versions of purebasic, you can just copy them, they have no protection, no registration needed.

[codewalker]

Fred is one of the very few that actualy cares about his customers.

What kind of an arguement is that ? As if with a user serial liscence and server check
Fred wouldn´t care anymore for his customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Purebasic is copyprotected isn't it? You can download an unprotected copy from
your account only, after paying for it and registering. That's their copy protection.

You are confusing a download protection with a copy protection.

All I´m saying is that PureBasic after 9 years of development is still using the same
user lisence policy without any copy protection. This was ok 9 years ago when PureBasic
was a hobby language, but today PureBasic is a Professional Package Plus a Professional
Forum Plus Professional on-line resources. All that should include an equal professional
user serial license with a server check.

It would give a message to new customers that they are dealing with a professional package
and it would slow down possible illegal copies in the future.

If I have the time I will design a new front for the website that matches more what PB is today,
as the current website doesn´t.
cw

[TomS]

Since when is the professionality of a program measured by its copy-protection system(s)?
As if anyone ever refused to use a program, because it seemed not professional enough due to a missing SN requester.
And as if there are not enough cheap (like crappy) tools that are very unprofessional (bad gui, bad programming, malicious etc) that use such 'protection'.

Why bother trying to create a real protection. There are divisions of programmers in big firms that don't do anything else but inventing new protections. And those get cracked in a few months. Sometimes even days. The work of years of many men 'destroyed' in no time.

Since Fred doesn't have a big firm with lots of people that invent protections and other stuff, I think we all agree that he could use his precious time to implement a new feature or fix some bugs in PB.

[Thorium]

Fred is one of the very few that actualy cares about his customers.

What kind of an arguement is that ? As if with a user serial liscence and server check
Fred wouldn´t care anymore for his customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Actualy, yes he would care less.
Copy protections make allways problems for the customers. A online serial check? So i am not allowed to install it if i don't have a internet connection? And yes there are plenty of situations i dont have a internet connection available.
So you cut the rights of your customer, well thats not caring about them, isnt it? And for what do you do it? Because of every one does it. Great argument. ^^

[PureLeo]

codewalker,

you are thinking very limited in my opinion, and making this discussion go nowhere... just read what i last said carefully...

points: purebasic's kind of protection is working for ~ 10 years i guess...

have you EVER SEEN a full armadillo/asprotect/sheetprotect'ed app that hasn't been cracked yet??? Have anyone?

At LEAST can you see that crackers crack crackable apps? And that Purebasic isn't such an app?

If they implement some UNBREAKABLE security system to Purebasic, that would be the fastest way to make it get cracked in weeks;

I'm done here

[AND51]

Didn't read the whole thread, so just my 2 cents:

• codewalker, PureBasic cannot bind itself to the hardware profile of a computer, so that it can only be installed and executed on that single computer. The reason is that the PureBasic license says, that a Person who bought PureBasic can used it on every machine he wants, as long as the machine belongs to that person. You see, PureBasic sticks itself to a person, not to a machine.
• Well, I thought off a different way from you all, why PureBasic is not so populated in that file sharing networks. I bought PureBasic for about 70 € (approx. 86 $). So why should I share my PureBasic with others? They don't have to pay it the copy it from m, but I had to pay for receiving it from Fred? It's a bit unfiar, I think. That's the reason why I would never expose my PureBasic package to those file sharing networks. Maybe many other people think the same way?

[Thorium]

PureBasic cannot bind itself to the hardware profile of a computer, so that it can only be installed and executed on that single computer. The reason is that the PureBasic license says, that a Person who bought PureBasic can used it on every machine he wants, as long as the machine belongs to that person. You see, PureBasic sticks itself to a person, not to a machine.

It can, if Fred would change the license. But that would be bad for the customers. It would mean no purebasic on a USB stick anymore. And how many computers would a customer allowed to use PB on? And whats about changing hardware or even buying a new computer? Trouble for the customer.

As we all know Fred cares about his customers, so that will not happen.

[PureLeo]

* Well, I thought off a different way from you all, why PureBasic is not so populated in that file sharing networks. I bought PureBasic for about 70 € (approx. 86 $). So why should I share my PureBasic with others? They don't have to pay it the copy it from m, but I had to pay for receiving it from Fred? It's a bit unfiar, I think. That's the reason why I would never expose my PureBasic package to those file sharing networks. Maybe many other people think the same way?

What I've said :]

[Rescator]

@AND51
I think the proper term is: Personal License
Which is rare sadly, most licenses out there are Single Machine license or Single Site license.
And amusingly enough, it's cheaper for a large company to buy PureBasic for all the developers that are to use it,
than doing it with other packages out there with Single Machine or Single Site licenses.
Also I'm pretty sure that a company could get a tax writeoff when buying PureBasic for their developers (as it could be termed a required tool, in many countries there are tax writeoffs on buying work computers for their employees (for use at home)) As for the Developers, what better "gift/bonus" from an employer than a PureBasic license?

@codewalker
Have you looked at The Piratebay? I just checked and a search there came up with two torrents only.
One is very old, the other is a bit old too. Both only have one seed and no leechers. TPB does not display downloads of the torrent file but I'm pretty sure it's a very low number.
And looking at the "NFO" of both they both seem to be by some individuals rather than a cracker group, heck there isn't even a release group mentioned (I believe those are called ISO groups?).
After 9 (or was it 10?) years of PureBasic, that's the only thing found there. I don't know about you, but I'd say that PureBasic's "copyprotection" is working better than any Securom or Ubisoft DRM'like solution out there!

The "scene" is more interested in Visual Studio or similar packages from big companies.
Now if Fred's Fantaise Software ever got "that" big Id' guess that he'd hardly care if it was pirated a lot. (sure it hurts your pride but..) he'd be earning a really nice living (bling bling) by then anyway.
The main drive behind most decisions to use copyprotection isn't the piracy alone, it's also politics. The stockholders or investors constantly want "more profit" and aren't interested in you know breaking even or just continuing just in the green, they want supergreen instead.
Copyprotection gives an inflated sense of protection.

And as stated earlier by folks here, I too am of the mindset that "hell no, there is no fucking way i'll hand "my" copy to anyone else" I paid for this (people are very protective of what they "own").
I've actually had a friend ask for a copy. Know what I said? "Just go to the website, there's a fully functional demo there, sure you can't use API stuff or make really huge programs etc. But it's a great way to try it out for real. Besides, it's so cheap that you might just wanna skip the demo and buy it anyway, you'll like it trust me.."
Now he's planning to learn programming (starting with some C or Java probably or PHP) so once he's got the elementaries of programing learned I'm sure he'll end up buying PureBasic.
If it wasn't for seeing how much fun I have with PureBasic etc. he wouldn't have decided to start learning programming in the first place I'm sure.

PureBasic isnt' just the programming language and toolset/package, it's also the PureBasic community.
And if you pirated PureBasic your simply not welcome here, you're left out alone in the cold.
I certainly haven't hear of any PureBasic forums or sites out there where PureBasic pirates hang out (at least no large ones I've noticed),
and if there are I'm sure they'd have network "issues" not before long as the PureBasic community is very protective.
Which in my eyes is the best copyprotection there is, namely protective loyalty!

[ultralazor]

I seen this thread on Google while researching this compiler, and thought I'd throw in my 2 cents..

The 'scene' hasn't released this because there is no public download and it's not popular enough to get into the hands of suppliers. 4.40 is the latest because someone who bought the product leaked it to a small release team.

As far as protectors/obfuscation go, unless you want to mail out USB dongle protectors don't bother, and in most cases those even get cracked. SecuRom 7.41 and Starforce 5.5 take about an hour to defeat through PE rebuilding, and those are the two strongest software protectors in the industry. Teams like RELOADED and Razor1911 do commercial games to compete, cause that's where the best protectors are. Stuff like apps with weaker protectors go to smaller teams.

Also I seen packer threads here too. Encryption stubs and self-modifying threads are boring. Try a inline VM. Your crackmes take like 5 seconds and don't even take rebuilding. Also compiling to machine code makes it even easier..less tools needed.

Here are some protectors for non-commercial markets worth mentioning that will work with PureBASIC:
-TheMida 2.1.2.0+
-Safengine 1.8.0.0+
-Hasp 5.0+

Cheap ones are good if you can use an SDK. You can have them encrypt defined blocks that require complex keygenning.

If you want to do one for PB in PB use encryption with poke&peek but keygen off a typed key that is generated from a server one-time based on a hardware ID. Server or Hardware isolation is key, hardware isolation doesn't exist on your computers despite what Intel claims. You'll also have to rebuild the PE in some cases, PE is COFF based and well documented.

SecuROM and Starforce use inline VMs and a lot of inline encryption, and pretty much every other stable windows loader trick there is. Inline VMs take a lot of skill and time to develop, API redirect is a cheap imitation. A server-auth HWID based keygen that is used for code decryption will stop anyone, it'd take a valid key for decryption and rebuilding, and you'd want to do IAT+CODE SECTION+RESOURCE parts of you binary.

Maybe one day intel/amd architecture will get real hardware isolation like PPC. Their TXT is already broken

[Baldrick]

my 2 bobs worth.
I know for certain that illegal version of PB are around as I know of 1 person here in the city I live in who runs it.
I had been helping him out on quite a regular basis with his code work, but had always assumed he had a full version.
2 things happened which made me a little suspect about his version in that he gave me a copy of some CAD program to try out, which when I installed it my computer started doing strange things with quite a bit of network activity which just seemed out of place. at the time my machine was due for a reformat, so that is what I did just to be on the safe side & I dumped that program he had given me.
A few months later he was having problems with some stuff he was trying to code & sent me his project files. When I tried to run his code, my IDe started complaining about subsystems not being installed. When I asked him about why he was running these subsystems, he had no idea what I was talking about. At this point I asked if he was running a legal version of PB or if it was some warez copy like the CAD program he had given me previous. He eventually admitted to me that both were warez. Ever since this, I have pretty much side stepped any help he wants with PB by just saying his version is too out of date & wont run on my current version & that he should get a properly registered copy so that I can help him.

So to me, the regularity with which PB is always being upgraded, along with a little loyalty from us paying customers is as good as any licensing scheme anyhow...

[Kuron]

If I have the time I will design a new front for the website that matches more what PB is today,
as the current website doesn´t.
cw

We are still waiting :roll:

[AndyMK]

And my 2 cents worth.... It's a programming language! The masses that download pirate software are not programmers so popularity is low compared to other types of software. Also, if you are a programmer, your gonna want an account to get the latest updates.