I'm thinking and rethinking about what's the best way to thwart piracy from day one, and the more I think of it, the more I realize the best movement is to give away the programs in source form to the community. This way -since I have a tradition of not using piracy protections in my programs anyway- we just can't tell who's pirating and who's not.

I respect my users enough not to accuse them of pirating right-up. (But yes, I know the realities of the world).

"El Cheapo" users who think $2.99 is one arm and one leg will go to extremes to get the software for free. I don't think those users are inherently evil, they are just, well, "cheapos".

Other users think everything should be free as it is their god-given right to never pay for anything. Developers should be paupers working for free all day long, and every attempt to monetize is seen with disgust by them... Out of any doubt this group are good to spend time learning how to compile the programs, for a change.

The official fair use of the programs' source code is to enable other developers to learn and contribute their twists/improvements -if so they wish-.

With regular commercial software you get absolutely nothing if you don't pay, so this way of distributing our sources is giving the community an unbelievably higher amount of benefit than purely commercial, the whole program to fiddle with, unrestricted. I can't effectively take any program back once it's source code is published in the open.

The programs as they stand right now were made at the most odd hours at night and aren't formatted any pretty, they just work for me in my development machine, which is perfectly OK for me.

I don't give my project files though, only the raw source code and bare resource files; like I mentioned, those interested in the source code for fair-use purposes will entirely rejoice to see this published online. On the other hand, everyone can rest assured that not having an ordered main project file won't stop "El Cheapo" users from spending the time making their own builds. Hopefully, those users can eventually become program fiddlers themselves, learning in the process. I'm not against that. In fact, I like the prospect of helping others learn.

Hardcore freebie hunters will inevitably find their way too.

In the end, there's something for everyone. Conscious users are going to support and I'm happy to foster the advancement of our community and making something that directly helps me and my family.

I promise not to ask anyone whether his copy has been paid or not, but I hope others will have the decency of not openly telling the world they are skimming off my work.

"Don't ask, don't tell"

"...but I hope others will have the decency of not openly telling the world they are skimming off my work"

Or that they are passing it off as their own product and then flogging it on eBay or wherever.

There's little doubt that along the line you are going to be ripped off, taken advantage of and exploited to the nth degree.

And you deserve better than that -- much better than that. But 'them's the realities' I'm sorry to say.

Well max, this is a risk I'm going to take for the sake of my own tranquility and productivity.

Operating closed-source, keeping technologies as secrets, treating your users like thieves and worsening their usage experience in the name of retaining exclusive rights is actually more work and burden for the programmer.

I'll just ditch it away to focus on what interests me: developing.

I know appreciative supportive users and fellow developers are going to be happy. That's enough for me.

Gift culture does subvert the primary mechanisms of the Matrix.

The Matrix subsists by transforming human endeavor into economic output which it uses to maintain its control.

Gift culture, on the other hand, releases human endeavor for the good of all who would receive it. When items are given instead of sold, the power and control obtained through ownership is eliminated.

Furthermore, in the case of Open Source Software, the fact that full freedom over the source code is also given means that code that the Matrix would never willingly create is readily available for the purposes of this HOWTO.

[Source:   https://kpvz7ki2v5agwt35.onion.to/wiki/index.php/Main_Page ]