[SailfishDevel] Jolla Harbour and Jolla Store

[Attila Csipa]

On 07-Nov-13 17:31, Michal Jerz wrote:
> Well, as Ronni wrote, using their copy-protection library is going to be
> entirely OPTIONAL, so its existence should not hurt anyone....

That will depend on what it actually does, and what kind of support it 
requires from the system. At the most benign level it can just try to 
figure out if the IMEI is authorized and such, at worst, it can 
interfere with system activities (how you guarantee a chain of trust if 
your copy-protection library relies on calls to user-replaceable parts 
of the system?).

> Rather than studying any researches, I'd prefer to simply give it a try
> myself and see if it makes any difference for me. After two years with the

That's also a way of research :)

> Nokia Store preventing use of any protection, I'd really like to at least
> TRY and see what difference it can make.

Certainly, I'm not implying what other developers must or must not do - 
everyone is free to make their own business decisions, good or bad (and 
since I still didn't earn a million $ by selling apps, I will not claim 
to be a monetization guru :). I'm just baffled at just how hellbent some 
people are on reducing the number of pirated copies without fully 
understanding the cost of development and dynamics of app-stores. And 
every hour a Jolla engineer (or 3rd party dev) spends devising or 
employing a copy-protection scheme is an hour that he's not putting 
towards other parts of the platform or his/her apps.

> One thing I know for sure is that in 2013, after all those who used to crack
> and release Symbian 'warez' got disinterested in the dying platform, sales
> of my Symbian applications actually noticeably INCREASED, despite the
> rapidly shrinking user base. So there must be some correlation between these
> things...

Again, without proper context and research, the origin of that 
correlation might not be obvious (Was legally buying it in the beginning 
hard or an obstacle? Did Nokia introduce carrier billing or better 
payment coverage in some markets along the way?). The same applies here. 
I agree there is an inflection point, where the platform is too small 
for real piracy to exist, but then the question is - who wants to remain 
a small player? And if you get big, that scheme will not help you 
anyway, so why make it?

Best regards,
Attila Csipa