Re: 8051 C Compiler

Walter Banks wrote:
David Brown wrote:

Chris Hills wrote:
Or bought someone else's. I.e. I didn't buy Keil because I got a hacked
IAR.

To a company selling a product, does it matter if a user uses a
competitor's product, or a hacked copy? In some cases, yes - if it is
important to you that your competitors fail (as I said, I don't think
that's the case in this market).

It matters if a user is using a hacked copy or a competitor.

I would prefer that a customer uses a competitors product than
a pirated copy. That way we can focus on creating a product that
is competitive with our competitor and our customers would
benefit by having us both put our competitive energy into creating
better products rather than directing resources to prevent or
track piracy.


I can see that makes sense, especially for a more long term strategy. It's easier to convert someone who is used to paying than to convert someone used to stealing.

It hurts our honest customers because they are paying for the
various costs of piracy rather than a superior product.

Piracy changes a public sense of product value as it is related
to the cost of creating it and the features it supports.


No so. In some markets piracy is 90% of the market. There are some areas
where if there are several SW engineers on a team you only get to sell
one compiler for any given target....

This happens...

I certainly don't find that hard to believe. It can be very easy for a department manager to feel that they've already bought a license, so why can't everyone use it? After all, they share the oscilloscope... Floating licenses, I suppose, go some way to controlling this situation - I know of at least one vendor which now only supplies floating licenses.


Again, the relevant number is not the number of people using illegal
copies (I wish we'd drop the silly and inappropriate term "software
piracy"), but the number who would otherwise have bought a license.

Software piracy is theft it doesn't matter what term is used for it or
or how it is justified.


It is not justified, but it is not theft and it is not piracy. I don't know about the details in your country, but here it is a civil offence but not a criminal offence (you can't be jailed for it), and is either a copyright infringement or a licensing infringement. Larger cases (such as distributing illegal copies) can be criminal offences, but that's because they are conning and deceiving people.

I don't think the problem of illegal software usage is helped by exaggerating the name or numbers involved. When I hear claims that 90% of a market uses "pirated" software, I see it as someone using the wrong data to magnify the problem and drum up sympathy. When I hear claims that an estimated 10% of sales are lost through illegal copying, I understand that it is a big dent in the developing company's income. Hard information in realistic terms is what's useful. In a more extreme case, the RIAA's campaigns to daemonize all copying of music has led to a general hatred of the organisation and their tactics, and probably done nothing to help their cause.

If
a thousand companies use illegal copies, but only one could have
afforded the full price, then your loses are one sale, not a thousand.
Those other 999 can be considered advertising - if one of them gets rich
and decides to play honestly, it will probably choose your product as
the one it is familiar with.

This is a argument that is often used, they would not have bought it
anyway so it isn't a lost sale. It isn't without loss. The losses are a little
more obscure. The one developer that paid for the compiler now needs
to compete with other companies products at a competitive disadvantage.


The honest user has the disadvantage of having paid the money, but he gets other advantages too, such as support, newer versions (cracked versions are often out of date), and better access to customers that value honesty more highly. But I do see your point about less direct effects of those 999 copies.

999 developers are depending on the needs and support of a single
developer to determine features and focus of the tools that they will
use in their application area.


I don't follow this point. I'd say the honest user has the edge, because he can influence changes in later versions of the software to suit his requirements, while the other 999 have to follow with what they can get.


I feel I'm going round in circles, but I am curious to know if there are
any reasonable estimates of the problems and loses from illegal copies
of development tools. Are there any realistic numbers? Or is real information so
difficult to come by that this is simply a guessing game?

Hard information is difficult. My first comment may surprise most
who have been reading this thread. The problem is smaller than the
guesses that are most often referenced. The industrial economic
impact is significantly larger than the pirated copies multiplied by
list price (I did say list not volume discounted) The major forms
of piracy are

1) Multiple seats with single license
2) Corporate sponsored piracy
3) Resell of copied software
4) Redistribution of copied software

We have reasonably good information on the distribution of the
various forms of piracy and can statistically extrapolate with some
degree of confidence.

The best way to measure the economic impact of piracy of
is to compare the tool costs in industries where piracy has been
essentially eliminated. The best example is the automotive industry
is an example where about 10 years ago essentially industry wide
a pirated copy of software was worth someone's job

The cost of supported tools was about .04% (A real number
I looked up the supporting information a couple of minutes ago)
of the project costs, there is very little anti piracy protection and
tools are feature rich with heavy focus on the actual intended
applications with considerable customer feedback.


A second case is a lot more complicated. Here a full competitive
compiler is available to anyone using the supported silicon.
Complicated because everyone who bought an proprietary
emulator also received a copy of the compiler. Compiler revenue
was tied to emulator sales but compiler distribution was also
available free from the company website. Statistically some users
would have not used the compiler tools. No reasonable development
could be done without the emulator effectively assuring us that all
compilers distributed would be revenue producing. Support costs
dropped both in real terms, cost per copy and administratively.
(Everyone who contacted us had a legal unprotected copy) Support
calls were shorter, customer feedback was focussed on the the
intended applications.

The most interesting number was the cost per copy tied to the
emulator sales was less than 15% of the normal commercial cost
for very similar compilers. The customer and vendor advantages
were large similar to the automotive case.

w..


I'm afraid that sounds like saying that when the software tools are free, there is no problem with illegal copying. I have little doubt that when the software can be tied to useful (or essential) hardware, you have a very different situation. I write software for a living - it is all in connection with hardware we sell, and I can be confident that the rate of illegal copying is zero.

The real question that still remains is not so much whether illegal copying is a problem, but what can be done to minimise its impact while minimising the inconvenience to honest users. Perhaps it is best to simply accept that such copying happens, and ignore the problem (at least at the level of individuals). That's what happens in the computer games industry - many games are unprotected, and for those that are protected, they are easy to copy nonetheless. Perhaps it is best with such elaborate protection systems that they are practically unbreakable - have your compiler run on a dedicated computer (using a non-x86 processor) would work, and not add significantly to the cost of high-end tools.
.

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