Re: Decompiler.NET reverse engineers your CLS compliant code

From: Shawn B. (leabre_at_html.com)
Date: 09/24/04 

Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 11:28:43 -0700

> > see it as tying to a specific machine. What happens if you go out of
> > business in 2 years?
>
> That won't happen. We're also only charging $500, not 5 million. There is
as
> much of a risk that you may get hit by a bus tomorrow and won't need the
> software anymore.

How do you know that won't happen? Because you don't want it to? There
have been many many 3rd parties and small software vendors and large ones
that have come and gone. I'm not saying that will happen to you, but I'm
saying the possibility exists. For as long as the use of the software
depends on the existence of the vendor, that software has a very high risk
of becoming useless in the unfortunate case that the vendor dissappears.
Again, I'm not saying it will happen to you, but there aren't many software
vendors that don't eventually go the way of the do-do bird without becoming
the largest entity in the niche you are targeting or being purchased by a
larger company. Who's to say that larger company will continue to support
the product?

If the licensing didn't require such a strict lockdown, it wouldn't be a
problem. But because the ability to use the software depends on a
particular companies existance, it is a very high risk for me to purcahse
*any* product that follows suit (not just yours). Alos, with new laws being
passed every day, you could become outlawed and thus, out of business, or
arrested, or whatever, for providing a tool that can potentially be used
maliciously for whatever reason the media/software industry decides is
harmful to them... they have a powerful lobby, how powerful is yours?

The point is it is a risk to spend any money on software that depends on the
vendors existence to continue usage. A risk that it too great for my pocket
book. Nothing personal.

> > Besides, I didn't say I'd write my own decompiler, I just said if it was
> > that important I could, I'm more than capable, its just not a priority
and
> > since I don't decompile non System.* assemblies, the price is not
> > justifyable.
> >
>
> We spent over two years writing ours. I imaging that two years of your
time
> is worth more to you than the $500 we charge for a license which our
> costomers feel is a tremendous value to them.

I don't doubt you spent 2 years on this. My time is worth more, but then
again, since I only occasionaly review the System.* namespaces, $500 isn't
worth it to me. If I was going to look at some proprietary code other than
System.*, perhaps it would be. But if I was going to do that, I would just
create my own version and learn how to imitate a feature and learn from it,
rather than "cheat" and take the easy way out. Of course, since I'm
dependant on the System.* namespaces, I have no problem examining something
when I'm not sure about the documentation. Would I pay $500 for that? No.
It isn't *that* important. With Reflector, it is a convenience that I
exploit. Nothing more.

There's always Mono, but I'm much less inclined to actually look at GPL code
(I generally avoid it for reasons I won't discuss in this thread). Besides
that, Mono may not be programmed exactly the way that the System.* classes
are.

> > I'm not fine with being actively dependant on a vendor in
> > order to keep using the software despite all of my requirements.
>
> You are not if you don't replace your motherboard or machine itself. Tivo
> doesn't even let you move your lifetime subscriptions to newer hardware
that
> they themselves sell.

I don't use Tivo so I wouldn't know. But we're not talking about hardware
here, we're talking about software.

> > I just happen to dissagree
> > with that kind of licensing. It does nothing to keep prices low
>
> Pirated copied cause vendots to raise their prices for their software
since
> their target market is cannibalized. Locking down licensed copies to
> hardware reduces the amount of software piracy and therefore does keep
> prices lower that without it.Although you may feel that $500 is high, we
> intenitionally priced our product much lower than the cost to develop it
to
> make it accessible to small developers like yourself who might benefit
from
> it. If Reflector also charged $500 and there weren't any free choices
> available with relatively good decompilation capability, you would
probably
> feel differently towards our product and be glad that a product like it
was
> available to you instead of having to invest the two years yourself trying
> to write your own decompiler that works as well.

Name one commercial product that every lowered its price because they got
piracy under control. No, what actually happens is they complain more and
then justify the higher prices because they have to spend more money on R&D
to contantly come up with new anti-piracy measures. Now that they have the
average user inconvenienced and have thwarted "casual" sharing, prices
aren't any lower than they were previously. But the true pirate still has
no problems getting around it.

Again, if Reflector wasn't free, I agree, I wouldn't be using it. I
wouldn't be purchasing any tool to do the job, anyway. I can read IL, I
would be inconvenienced, but I can do it (I program in it sometimes, probly
because I program Win32 in assembly also) but, if I wasn't "restricted" to
my initial machine which changes often and "dependant" on a vendor, I might
consider it.

But since we're going in circles here, there's no more point in elaborating
why I don't purchase your product or any other that causes me to be
dependant on them and screwed, blued, and tattoo'd if they go out of
business. You obviously feel justified and confident in your product and
licensing terms, and I obviously feel like it creates a severe financial
risk for me to use the product and nothing is going to change that. If the
entire software industry follows suit, I'll use less software or will
eventually move to Free software (free as in beer, free as in speech)
because I just happen to refuse dependance on any particular non-Microsoft
software vendor. It has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do
with my freedom and getting value out of my hard-earned money.

Thanks,
Shawn

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