The big article in the February 15, 2008 issue of SDTimes (and the only one of note actually) is on software piracy. Not a great article and you have to be a complete lamb to be surprised by some of the statements. “Piracy groups have become their own ISVs,” said DeMarines. “They’ve got developers, testers and distribution.” for instance. Ummm, let’s see. I’m 32 this year so this statement was already true 17 years ago. (Trust me). However there were a couple good points:

  • Some development shops are growing their own form of software protection, which could be a costly mistake. First, software protection is likely not the company’s core competency…
  • Even if there is a commercial solution in place, software developers may not be … applying it correctly.
  • Sebastian Holst, senior VP of PreEmptive Solutions – “How you build software translates to security and financial risks, and therefore you’re obligated to align software development practices with business stakeholders.”
  • Software piracy means risk, and the best way to mitigate that is to integrate risk management into every phase of the business and software life cycles.