[LGP-copyprotect] Copy protection

[Hein-Pieter van Braam]

Hi,

I have been reading the entire archive :) (what a job THAT was :P) and I
would like to say that I agree with Wolter Hunter.

I am a long-time customer of LGP and tuxgames, I think I've purchased
around 10-15 games through tuxgames and at lugradio live 2007. And I
have always been impressed by the quality of the ports. I am what you
could call a 'happy customer'. 

I must say that after reading the press release on linuxgames.com I was,
well... unhappy about the whole thing. Understanding, but unhappy. I am
maybe a fourth group of people that Wolter did not address, I am a
paying customer and I will probably remain a paying customer but I am
profoundly unhappy about software calling home in any way. This is one
of the reasons why I generally exclusively use open source software.

I purchase (proprietary) software from tuxgames and lgp because they are
good games, and after having spoken to the CEO of tuxgames I have a
sense of trust which allows me to put my philosophical issues with
proprietary software aside. 

The fact that LGP and tuxgames sell games without any form of copy
protection is a very big reason why I pay for the software in the first
place, it gives me a sense of security in my purchase. 

While I think that it is very commendable that all staff of LGP has the
authorization to make patches for the games should LGP go out of
business, I do not feel that this is a solution.

Furthermore, apart from online games which require unique (registered)
keys to operate, all other copy protection schemes have always been
broken in a couple of weeks.

For instance, if your copy protection system tries to verify that I not
just have a firewall rule to block access to the activation servers, it
would be trivially easy to create a library which just always gives an
error on the connect() system call. That is just a LD_PRELOAD away. 

How long do you think it will be before versions of your software with
this very patch hit the p2p networks? In the meantime, all your legit
customers are left with software with 'non features'.

I will personally continue to support lgp and tuxgames by purchasing all
the games I find interesting, and I see no reason whatsoever to stop
doing so, but I do feel that I will have no choice but to either
download pre-cracked versions after I bought the game or crack the game
myself. 

I am however, quite excited by the prospect of downloadable games from
lgp, so I can start playing (almost) immediately after having paid for
the software, perhaps a model like introversion would be a good fit? I
found that to work extremely well.

They allow you to download the game immediately upon purchase, and give
you the option to have a CD shipped as well for 2 pounds extra. For me
this is an ideal way of getting software.

I hope my little rant does not give the wrong impression, I am not
'threatening' to do anything, I am merely giving you my views on the
situation. And, like I said: I will continue to purchase games that I
find interesting like I did before.

- Hein-Pieter van Braam