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AnonTechie writes:
"Echoing a question asked on programmers.stackexchange.com - How can software be protected from piracy ?
It just seems a little hard to believe that with all of our technological advances and the billions of dollars spent on engineering the most unbelievable and mind-blowing software, we still have no other means of protecting against piracy than a "serial number/activation key." I'm sure a ton of money, maybe even billions, went into creating Windows 7 or Office and even Snow Leopard, yet I can get it for free in less than 20 minutes. Same for all of Adobe's products, which are probably the easiest. Can there exist a fool-proof and hack-proof method of protecting your software against piracy? If not realistically, could it be theoretically possible? Or no matter what mechanisms these companies deploy, can hackers always find a way around it ?"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by bill_mcgonigle on Saturday March 22 2014, @04:10AM
Yes, you can stop copying if you never give them the code. Whether that's running a web service or existing in a sealed device. It just won't work on a general purpose computer.
But allow me to suggest you worry more about making money than stopping copying. Redhat gives away its code and is worth billions of dollars. Microsoft worth even more and its software is widely copied.
If there's some reason why stopping software copying is more important than making money, then you should explain those reasons.