Sal, you're overstating the case here. The Kinko's hack was all over usenet. Who knows they might sue me, I posted something on the Micron group when people were complaining about the $29 upgrade price. I pointed out the Kinko's trial version and said somebody would probably hack it. Boy, what a stretch that was.
Turns out there's an almost legal hack too, though a bit more costly- if you buy a word or excel upgrade, then install Kinko's office on top of it, it won't get disabled after 90 days either.
Here's a ref and a quote:
pcweek.com:80/news/0317/18esuit.html
Fazendin said he had found a few cracks, or code that
cracks security codes, on Usenet and posted them on
his Web site two weeks ago. He took them down early
Tuesday, after he was served by Microsoft's lawyers.
He did not think Microsoft would sue him and believed
that if they came after him at all, it would be with a
cease-and-desist letter, which he would have complied
with.
"I get the impression I'm sort of being made an
example of," he said. "It's so easy to find this [material].
All you have to do is run a search. I'm really surprised
they went after me."
Editorial aside: I don't endorse piracy, but going after some random 22 year old who got the hack off usenet doesn't particularly impress me. And I checked, it is indeed available on usenet. Microsoft whining about piracy in general doesn't impress me when they are trying to drive Netscape out of business by giving stuff away, or paying people to take it. Of course, that latter couldn't possibly be predatory pricing, because software has 0 cost of production.
Cheers, Dan. |
