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Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy?

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On 2019-07-20 3:39 a.m., groovee@cyberdude.com wrote:
> 
> I'm asking - is it possible that someone can download a copy of the
> software and use it without paying??

It is impossible to answer that in the general case. There are many
factors that come into play. It all depends on how the software was
written.  With desktop software, some applications run once they're
installed and others require a license key. Whether or not a license key
is needed is a design decision those authors made, not an inherent
property of desktop software. It is similar with cloud software. How it
runs and what authorization is needed is largely a design decision for
the implementors of that software, not an inherent property of the
nature of cloud software.

Also note that "cloud" does not always mean "JavaScript" or "running in
the browser".  (Which was what Evertjan was alluding to when he -- quite
correctly -- pointed out that this discussion is off-topic in this
newsgroup.)

At https://products.office.com/en-ca/explore-office-for-home you can see
that Microsoft's "Office 365" "cloud" offering gives you software that
is "Fully installed on your PC or Mac, no Internet access needed to
create or edit documents."  In that case, "the cloud" is used to
distribute the software, share documents, presumably periodically verify
that your subscription is paid up, etc.  It is most certainly not trying
to run Word or Excel in your browser.  By contrast, I believe Google's
cloud-based word processor and spreadsheet do run in your browser.
Those two companies made very different design decisions when
implementing their cloud-based software.  So you can see that your
question about piracy requires different answers (which in turn depend
on different factors) for each piece of cloud-based software.

Many companies are using the cloud to verify software licenses in an
effort to reduce or eliminate piracy (whether or not the application is
running in the browser).  That's because they've chosen to use the cloud
to do so, not because there is any inherent property of the cloud that
prevents piracy.

It is also important to remember that "the cloud" is not necessarily
well-defined.  Almost everything Internet-related gets labelled as being
in "the cloud" these days.  It is currently a popular marketing buzzword
that means different things to different people and different companies.
 Some of those companies just use the phrase "the cloud" to sound trendy
and up-to-date.

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Thread

Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? groovee@cyberdude.com - 2019-07-17 01:08 -0700
  Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? "Evertjan." <exxjxw.hannivoort@inter.nl.net> - 2019-07-17 12:36 +0200
  Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2019-07-17 19:10 +0200
    Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? groovee@cyberdude.com - 2019-07-17 10:28 -0700
      Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2019-07-18 16:16 +0200
        Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? groovee@cyberdude.com - 2019-07-20 00:39 -0700
          Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? "R.Wieser" <address@not.available> - 2019-07-20 23:11 +0200
          Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? John-Paul Stewart <jpstewart@sympatico.ca> - 2019-07-20 22:17 -0400
            Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? groovee@cyberdude.com - 2019-07-24 01:01 -0700
          Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? Arno Welzel <usenet@arnowelzel.de> - 2019-07-23 07:49 +0200
  Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? "Evertjan." <exxjxw.hannivoort@inter.nl.net> - 2019-07-18 10:26 +0200
  Re: Does "cloud" mean the end of piracy? Soviet_Mario <SovietMario@CCCP.MIR> - 2019-07-21 14:29 +0200

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