This guy has the right idea and this is what I meant.

I was once part of a particular arcade game emulation community (smaller than MAME) and the copy protections there ranged from non-existant, to the trivial, to the standard baked serial codes on the ROMs/hard drives and boards, to ones with security chips that performed very obnoxious operations in place for the main code itself, or outright served as an encryption device for the whole game data bank, decrypting on the fly for the CPU. The only way these particular ones were beaten were because the encryption method was simple and after patching out the security chip calls, the program could use the unencrypted data files natively. If you need an example of popular arcade games that took literally years to break because of aggressive copy protections of this sort, take a look at the CPS boards, made by Capcom. The early boards took a significant amount of time to emulate and make physical boards revivable - the CPS-3 board protection's death can be dated to approximately the year 2007. Not bad for hardware from 1996, I think. An intelligently designed system that used an encryption like AES would be an absolute nightmare to defeat, and would likely have to be defeated in similar, insane ways like burning off a chip's casing, then taking a photo of the physical layout of the chip in order to get at the data, as was the case for Mask ROMs. For a PC where you can take a dump from memory to snatch the key or the decrypted executable which you can then crack in standard ways, so this is less relevant, but it's still a higher entry bar - but most cracker groups voluntarily challenge themselves to defeat software packers and encrypters, so if your program is big enough to attract attention of one of those, it will be a matter of days rather than minutes. And then there are the folk that create home made replica server programs for MMOs so that they can hack the rules and drop rates, so there's always someone with the skill to write the assembly code to do what has to be done, even if they can't SEE what they're trying to copy.

At a significant cost, you CAN briefly deter pirates, except for only the most dedicated. If your software is niche enough (you imply that it is, at this stage) then you can survive with moving functionality off onto the hardware dongle. There are PC games that save profile data directly onto a USB stick, and some of these have been niche enough to make this barrier to cracking too high to overcome for years.

Is your software small enough, is your need big enough to foot this cost and inconvenience to your users? Can't answer that one for you.

And if you use it, USE IT PROPERLY, bake in the encryption into your software so it becomes fiendishly difficult to crack (it will never be impossible.)

Guilt-ware doesn't work (WinZip, mIRC, anyone?) and I would ask a lawyer before attempting any kind of data collection.

0/10

This is pretty much exactly my point. Old tech undergoing a familiar modernisation path as with most technology, then some bright spark decides this is the most fitting use for it? What a terrible, disagreeable waste.

I'm sure we can all get behind this fantastic use of technology that will further the demonisation of a plant.

...directly in their field of expertise and strength.

If you willingly cut out the best (and sometimes only) advantage that an independant developer has, their freedom to be creative, then good luck with that one.

This wasn't a valid point even back when CRTs were the norm because it is far easier to run a CRT at a high refresh rate than an LCD, although flat-panels are now catching up (for 3D and such things.) But it's a valid point you make - it does my head in when people worry about increasing FPS at that level on a cheap-ass 60hz monitor.

I don't disagree at all, I have major issues with how copyright is being extended to stupid levels and I especially dislike, when I was doing academic work, the way that you need to pay for a lot of scientific research - but I just don't agree that the method of fighting it is to deliberately break the law in this case. It is not a cause that deserves that kind of response, unlike more serious issues like corruption and the kinds of violent protests in the past used to help secure women's rights and such. If you don't agree with copyright, don't buy copyrighted material *and stick to free material.* I've said before in an older post, you have a right to live and to have liberty but you don't have a right to be entertained for free. Entertainment is so easy to make for oneself that it is ridiculous that anyone should feel the need to pirate to accomplish this.

I think your very true example of the science paywall is a hairier topic however. I'm not saying all science is good but for-pay journals shouldn't need to exist - they should be free for all. It's still tough to justify that deliberately breaking law is appropriate for the science realm considering the hit-and-miss nature of the field but at least there it has a non-trivial impact.

Really? You think that's an equal comparison? I have no words, other than you're being intellectually dishonest.

By whose divine measure? Yours?

Pray tell, what is your occupation, so that others may deem your livelihood a waste of time as well?

It is pretty interesting how Microsoft neglected to make it more intuitive since its introduction in XP (or was it 2000? I do not recall.) As another poster noted there's partly some of the functionality there in Linux but it's not hooked up to any current GUI properly. A real pity. And you are correct, just holding a file open for reading is a blocker in both cases, which is what actually catches most people out.

Didn't realise that about lsof, that's good to know.

If you don't know what your computer is doing and why it would be writing to a removable device then that's your own failing. Linux does that just the same too - ever seen 'Device or resource busy'? No help there. Allowing you to force unmount is not a safe thing to do for casual users - you need to know what you're doing and be prepared to accept the consequences of a mistake.

Windows is perfectly fine here if you use and maintain it correctly, and part of that is not installing random background running applications that keep hitting the filesystem and not leaving programs open with files on the device you're trying to eject(!) Explorer windows count as a program in this case. Thumbnail services etc.

If you still have a problem with it and your current solution is a more manual method, just go with something like Lockhunter. Works fine for this situation. Installing a separate utility for this task is another (valid) complaint entirely, in that Windows really never comes with an easy toolchain out of the box. Lockhunter just provides the same functionality as Linux's lsof, so it's worth having.

...sure Windows can. It's called 'Safely Remove Hardware'.

Not going to bother responding to the out-of-hand dismissal of my other points, it's clear you're not actually interested in a debate.

If someone says that a particular license is not suitable for them, why the pithy 'boo-hoo' response?

Because it's virtually always someone whining about the fact that someone made a choice they can't stand, and feel a need to gripe about it instead of accepting it and moving on. Also, because this is Slashdot.

A post by someone that states exactly why they don't use the GPL and why it doesn't work for them, on a discussion topic on how GPL use is declining, is 'griping' about it instead of accepting it and moving on? Seriously? The fact that our posts exist make this entire point completely hypocritical. Slashdot, indeed.

Why is it every shout of 'write it yourself' to people saying that the GPL viral source-release 'feature' has downsides, seem to come over the internet, presumably created with dozens of individual pieces of software they did not write, on hardware they did not manufacture, by people in houses they did not bit, fed by food they did not grow, in a society they did not create and perhaps, not even contributed to? I'm using extremes to be a dick, but my point stands - there is a phrase 'standing on the shoulders of giants,' and yes, that applies to industry and producing a profit, using technologies and concepts that, surprise, may not have been invented by them, but merely refined and targeted. If someone says that a particular license is not suitable for them, why the pithy 'boo-hoo' response? Pithy is indeed the word I have to use to describe much of the open-source movement.