At a time when banks are shedding IT roles by the dozen, it seems counter-intuitive that 83 per cent of the nation’s chief information officers should report they are confident about the future of their business to the extent that 45 per cent expect to hire IT staff in the first six months of the year. The question remains – is this a dead cat bounce?
Software piracy is a big deal. Maybe, you can reason, Microsoft and Adobe and the like can suck it up because they still make huge profits. Yet, for small independent software vendors each unpaid, unlicensed installation could be taking food from their mouth. CodeArmor is a tool to help developers, and is now available for Linux.
V.i. Laboratories (nothing to do with the vi editor!) have been helping independent software vendors – ISVs – gather intelligence on pirated use of software through their CodeArmor Intelligence product.
This package generates actionable piracy leads within days of a software application’s release and general availability. V.i. Laboratories report some of their customers are receiving more than a thousand infringement records a day!
This month V.i. Labs released a Red Hat ready release of CodeArmor Intelligence, supporting Red Hat versions 4 and 5.
It is being distributed through the Red Hat online software catalog. Additionally, V.i. Labs have joined the Red Hat ISV Partner program to ensure their software is certified on Red Hat installations.
V.i. Labs traditionally integrated with .NET applications on Microsoft Windows platforms but recognised Linux was “quickly becoming the next big operating system.”
Victor DeMarines, Vice President of Products, said “Linux is a rapidly growing platform for many high-value software application because it’s cost-effective, reliable and offers high performance.”
“However, ISVs developing software for Linux are experiencing the same level of piracy activity found in Microsoft-based environments,” he continued. “Our new version of CodeArmor Intelligence reflects this reality and allows ISVs to detect and report on pirated use for both Linux and Windows applications.”
One traditional benefit of Linux has been that it is available free of charge and comes with a rich array of software that is also free. An argument for the adoption of Linux has always been that users can have all the software they need without having to either fork out cash or resort to piracy.
There is a big market for commercial Linux software, and it makes sense Red Hat has been targeted by V.i. Labs given Red Hat Enterprise – with paid support available – is widely used for commercial ERP and real-time control system applications, because it is such a robust operating system.
Some products, like MySQL, are available under two different licenses. One is the traditional GPL open source license. The second is a commercial license for companies who wish to use MySQL with their own products but do not wish to apply the GPL to them.
Consequently, there are many reasons why paid software does, and should, exist on Linux – which unfortunately brings with it the problem of piracy and potential lost revenue.
For such software houses CodeArmor Intelligence could well be a smart choice.
Michelle Thomas
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