[chrislomax]

Although I find this fantastic, I also find it quite odd?

I think his attitude is fantastic for someone who is having their apps ripped off, I find it strangely odd that in the comments people think this is the attitude that developers are meant to take when their work is ripped off, humbled.

I purchase all apps from the app store, I had Cydia but I took the jail break off my phone. I think the 59p - £3 for an app is nothing for all the hard work that has gone in and I am more than happy to make the purchase.

I think the whole episode has been strangely rewarding for him but again I think it makes people think that all developers should have this attitude. I think it's funny that in the comments that someone said that developers should treat all consumers with positive and constructive humbleness. I'm sorry but the meaning of "Consumer" is "A person who purchases goods and services for personal use". There is a keyword here, "Purchase".

Kudos to the guy for some great PR but I really hope that all "consumers" don't get this mentality when trying to rip off apps

[britta]

I'd note that jailbreaking and Cydia are not about piracy or encouraging piracy (they're about much more - tons of people even buy jailbreak-only tweaks/themes/etc. from the Cydia Store). Some percentage of people do find ways to get pirated apps after jailbreaking, but those people have to go out and install additional sources/tools beyond the default Cydia install.

The Cydia founder talked about app piracy in a talk a while ago: http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/13/360idev-saurik-on-the-mobile-... - it fits in:

"Saurik said that many of the pirates he's dealt with are just kids, no more than teenagers, very smart but with not much solid life experience to speak of. And he said that like children, they were both vengeful (they will give bad reviews and attack developers who attack them), and easily won over -- sometimes, by just sending a nice email, he was able to get a former pirate to cooperate with him or even '...come over to the light side.'"

"The best solution to piracy, he said, was to convert the pirates -- don't disable their app or attack them (because likely, they will simply blame the app rather than learn a lesson), but instead inform them that they're breaking the rules, and give them an easy way to do things right. One app Saurik described simply put a one-time notice in the app that the user was using a pirated version, and saw sales spike when the notice went out."

[chrislomax]

I appreciate it's about more. My reservations towards jail breaking were more about performance and use rather than piracy to be honest. I should have expanded on my point further.

I don't believe you should be tied into your phones "terms" of operation but in my situation I found the hack pointless and unnecessary. Not to say that it doesn't suit everyone though!

If I take Cydia out the equation there, I stand by my point that I prefer to pay for the goods. Jail breaking and Cydia were used just to get my point across.

[mekoka]

I don't think people expect developers to react like this, actually he's being praised for exactly the opposite.

People would expect and probably would understand, that he'd choose to adopt a more antagonist position when encountering someone wanting to crack his software. That's what makes his reaction a class act. He decides not to take it in the first degree and opts to rather approach the whole thing with empathy, as a result a more interesting situation unfolds.

This isn't to tell you that you need to be understanding of people stealing your stuff, but it's just a reminder that sometimes we don't have all the facts and that during a situation perceived as a conflict, it could be worth it for adverse parties to take a bit of time to walk just a few steps in one another's shoes. It might clear up lots of misunderstandings.

[chrislomax]

I know he is being praised for this attitude but he didn't know from his original post what his intentions were.

I hate to point out the obvious here as well but what if the original poster was simply just lying? What if he was back tracking as he felt guilty and was just showing some empathy to the developer?

As he did, he gifted the app to him. Why didn't the guy get a friend to do that? Why didn't he get a voucher?

I must admit, if my true intentions were to crack the app because I had no means of paying for it officially, I would have stated that in the first post as I would have felt a moral guilt to do so.

It has turned out well for the developer and I really wish him the best of luck. I hope he does make a lot of cash out of this.

The biggest thing to come out of all of this is not that it's best to take the moral high road or karma is rewarding him etc etc. Its the unexpected power of a viral news article. Not to say that this was scripted conversation, I truly believe that this is authentic but I bet you find a lot of similar stories erupting with this type of behaviour now.

[hxa7241]

That is the inherent contradiction of IP in a digital world.

One one hand you are supposed to be paying for a scarcity: someone expending time and resources to produce something. On the other hand you are supposed to be paying by buying a copy: something that is an abundance with a natural price of zero.

Buying is not just setting a price according to the seller being a nice guy or having indirectly done something else. Buying is a market interaction: you aim to pay the lowest price available (Don't we want functioning markets?). Well, that is zero, because copies are infinitely available.

No matter how much the law tells us copies are restricted, they are not in fact, and we know it. The market will always drive toward making things available at the real physical cost of their production. As long as IP tries to force prices so far away from their real level, people will respond in odd ways.