Ask HN: Startup uses pirated/warez software, what should I do?

Without making a comment on the rights/wrongs of it, this is very common, especially in smaller businesses. If you haven't encountered it before, you've been lucky.

But the crux of your post is what to do. You either 1) get over it, 2) quit, or 3) assuage your discomfort by only using legal software yourself. What you are willing to tolerate is a personal issue and one no-one can judge you for. I'd put up with it, because I've worked with people who've done far worse than copyright violation but I'm not a judgmental kinda guy.

P.S. Actually, there's a #4. Try and convert the company into using legally purchased, lower cost apps. If you're on the Mac, both Pixelmator and Acorn are great Photoshop alternatives (within a range of tasks). Problem is, it sounds like you have Windows and Mac gear and lots of people involved.. so it'd be an uphill battle for little direct win.

Commercial piracy of software at companies is one case where I think it is completely inexcusable. As a company you are using the software to make money, so it is simply a cost of business. If Adobe CS will provide your company more than $1000 of value, it is a good investment, so they should buy it.

Furthermore, it seems unlikely you need all the software they are giving you. Assuming you are a software developer, you should be able to make do with open source alternatives.

i use foss where i can anyway, but as i said gimp (the only real foss image editor out there) isn't a replacement to photoshop and illustrator.

i am a developer but i still need to do some gfx work for product flows etc

as a small angel round funded company not making any money there just isn't the budget, is my guess.

I'd say that Photoshop and Illustrator are the wrong tools for doing product flows. dot, omnigraffle or a sharpie are all better suited to the task.

I guess if you have some in-house artists using Photoshop they should have a copy, I guess. But they could probably get by with Paint.NET[1] on Windows. petercooper mentioned two good mac image editing programs. Inkscape[2] is very capable for vector graphics. Sure Paint.NET and Inkscape aren't as good as photoshop, but people are using them to make amazing art so.

coffeenut/Locke1689 mentioned BizSpark, which includes MS expression studio. Really if you're working in a start up using Windows that isn't using BizSpark that's more than just a little odd.

I find it a little hard to believe that Keynote and/or Powerpoint are necessary. OO.o Impress[3] works just fine for everything I've ever thrown at it, including shoehorning it into making posters. Even google docs presentations are generally sufficient. But I also don't use the typewriter animation with the sound effect.

You mentioned Office, to which I would have two questions. The first being "Why?" And the second being "Why is OO.o inadequate?" I mean, are you writing .docx files, converting them to .doc, printing them to pdf, zipping them and then mailing them about for documentation? And even if you are, OpenOffice would probably work fine. It works especially well when you set the default to save as .doc/.docx (etc).

Finally, if it makes you uncomfortable I think you have to bring it up. Not because it's evil or incompetent or anything, but because it clearly bothers you. If it bothers you, your work output will decrease, you'll hate working, start eating bacon mushroom bacon cheddar bacon burgers for lunch and dinner to make yourself feel better and then have a massive myocardial infarction. All because of a little software piracy.

[1] http://www.getpaint.net/ [2] http://inkscape.org/ [3] http://www.openoffice.org/product/impress.html

If you need the photoshop look and layout, have you tried http://www.gimpshop.com/ yet?

Personally I disagree with your point on the GIMP. I've used the GIMP for years and find that just as good as Photoshop - but then again I've used the GIMP for years, and more than photoshop.

Gimp is similar to Photoshop, but not to Illustrator! Try Inkscape (http://inkscape.org/) for that. In many cases I found it to be more user friendly than Illustrator.

I often buy my own licenses of software if I feel like it's going to be an issue asking for the company to do so.

Textmate, Propane, LittleSnapper, Things, are all software I use for work that I own the licenses to.

I use google docs over MS Office.

Photoshop is the elephant in every room though. $1000 for creative suite. Lots of people in the development cycle use it but not as a primary tool. Buying it for every seat in your office is expensive as hell.

If it were my company and we were bootstrapping, I'd probably pirate photoshop, use google docs as much as possible, buy keynote, pirate windows for the QA boxes (damn you IE!).

I think there's a line crossed if the company wont buy any software. If there's no respect for software developers, there won't be respect for you.

There's no need to pirate windows for QA. Microsoft offers free virtual machines loaded with different versions of IE specifically for QA purposes, see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=....

but you actually need to own a copy of some form of windows to run these.

these are windows virtual pc [1] images

Supported Operating Systems:Windows 7;Windows Server 2003;Windows Vista;Windows XP

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx

Sure, a single windows license isn't cost prohibitive. You can easily find them in the < $100 range on Newegg, SoftwareMedia, etc, not to mention the numerous promotions they run which can bring a license down to the $50 - $70 range. Someone else mentioned BizSpark, which can help defray even these minor costs. In either case you only need one license and then you can just remote into the machine and pick your VM whenever you want to QA.

Microsoft has a startup program called BizSpark that gives you access to nearly all of their software for free.

http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/

Overview of the software packages included http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/5/4/15454442-CF17-4...

I believe last time I checked it was $99 and you could use it for 3 years before having to upgrade.

Those virtual images are for Microsoft Virtual PC, which only runs on Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

Everything I can see on the Internet suggests that the files used to work with non-Microsoft virtualization software (like VMWare), but does not anymore. See http://petelepage.com/blog/2009/09/running-the-ie-vpcs-on-ot...

I personally think its a chicken and egg problem. I've been on both sides of this...

A small team of us took over a company that was failing a while back, we spent enormous amounts of time using 'warez'd software to get things rolling. We always had on our road map - "get legal - software compliance"... Guess what, we did. One year in, profits were up and we made the purchases to get everything legit. I think you could rest easier if you asked to have it put on the road map, and worked towards getting it paid off as a goal.

ALSO - when its on the road map, you start questioning if everyone really needs the software. At one point, all the Customer Support Reps had Microsoft Office. The reality is they didn't need it. We offered up openoffice if they really needed to create doc files but didn't support it (typically they would use software for "personal" things on the job) ...

Disclaimer: Company is 3rd to 5th largest in niche, 20m a year revenues, 100+ employees.

Yep, that is kind of the untold story in the polarized positions on the subject. There are a lot of large volume purchases who would not exist today had they not relied on pirated software early on. It would be nice if there was a program by the major software vendors that a small company just starting out could get a 2yr grace period on licensing and then pay a small overage when the time was up. The reality for most of the small shops 2 years is going to weed out the ones that could not survive and most that do could cover the cost of licensing by then.

I was with a company that did the same and went on to become a very large Adobe product purchaser. Adobe made millions of the fact that this company pirated software to get off the ground. We also had an agreement that we make it right ASAP. I agree that when that is in the charter people become more aware of the tradeoffs because when it comes time to make it right they want that number to be as small as possible.

Personally I am torn on the subject, small start-up are using the money to put it into developers pockets and pay the bills, in doing so they can grow to revenues that allow them to purchase the licences. Usually more seats than they would have got up front because the company has now grown. So in the end the software companies are getting revenue that would not have existed in the first place had they not relied on pirated software. On the other hand there are some shops that never plan to make it right and that is just not cool. As with everything in life when you peel back the onion it's never black and white. For me personally, if they had plans to make it right when revenue supports it then I would be cool with it. As well, as a software vendor, I would be cool with a company doing this (I would never put it in writing). If they become profitable everyone wins, if they don't well then the software vendor would have never seen that revenue anyways.

> There are a lot of large volume purchases who would not exist today had they not relied on pirated software early on.

Or they would have made do with less expensive alternatives--Pixelmator on Mac instead of Photoshop on Mac, say. And with enough companies buying those cheaper alternatives, there would have been enough competition in these areas for a wide range of, say, Photoshop alternatives to develop.

This is an often overlooked consequence of piracy. Yes, someone who just can't afford a $1000 package is not a lost sale for that package. But there probably IS some price point they could afford, and their piracy does represent a lost sale to whoever would have provided that less expensive alternative.

If they where never viewed as an alternative, (whether legitimately or not). Then it does not represent a lost sale. That is the problem with the lost sale doctrine, it supposes someones mind and intentions without any relevance to their perceptions. If the company or persons never saw the alternative as a legitimate choice then it was not a lost sale for the alternative vendor.

While Pixelmator is a great tool, and I recommend it all the time as the best alternative to PS, it has not always existed. I think it hit the market around 07, meanwhile Photoshop was 82. There was a pretty long spread of pay or pirate between those dates because before Pixelmator there was no realistic alternative to Photoshop. As well there are still people that do not see it as an alternative.

I want to be really clear on this though, I do not in any way condone piracy, I do not think it is justified. I was merely pointing out that some software piracy does lead to revenue for the Software vendor. And in some cases it is revenue that they would not have seen without the piracy and sometimes more than what they would have seen had the company paid for licenses up front.

> t would be nice if there was a program by the major software vendors that a small company just starting out could get a 2yr grace period on licensing and then pay a small overage when the time was up.

As has been mentioned numerous times on this page. Microsoft has such a program. It's called http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/

microsoft BizSpark has a program where startups get an MSDN Premium subscription for free. All you OS's, all your servers, including SQL Server. for free for 3 years. Hell, you can even get Office 2011 Mac through it.

Using warez is frankly ridiculous for startups running Windows software.

I used to work with a few companies that use warez software.

Let's just say that the situation weren't great in those companies.

While I'm not trying to judge people with their morality and all that stuff, there might be something that link between founders/owners that use pirated software and the quality or how their work, attitude, and behavior.

It feels like it is inline to the example of: your past performance might be a reflection of your work ethic kind of thing.

It is probably related to integrity of the owner.

It is something you should be willing to quit your job over. Learn from your experience, act now and keep your head high.

Or, compromise, say nothing, feel bad for years, and lose your self-esteem.

It's stolen goods, period. If a CEO is willing to behave like that, what else will they do? Trust me, it will only get worse.

I disagree. It might be a reason to look for employment elsewhere, but jumping ship right off the bat would be pretty unwise, especially if you have responsibilities to think about (family, bills, eating, that kind of thing).

This is the same as any moral argument, whereby you advise someone not to intervene in a situation where they could help, because of a possible danger.

There is right, and then there is smart.

It's difficult to say that action would be noticed or appreciated and the danger may not be realized but can't be ignored.

But heros do dumb things because they're right.

Unfortunately, this is common. It's also something for which there doesn't appear to be a gray area. You either see a mature (in the 'attitude' sense, not 'age'), professional company that legally obtains licenses, or you see people using cracked licenses for just about anything. Not just the 'expensive' licenses, but all the way down to WinZip.

Replace the soft word "warez" in your description above with "stolen property" and it might help make the issue less morally ambiguous. It's theft, plain and simple.

Why would you want to work for them? If they believe this is ok, it's only a matter of time before you're screwed over too. If it is an oversight on their part, you breaching the subject is much better than them eventually realizing they have an employee who is fine with dishonest business practices.

You should be able to broach the subject in a professional way; if you're dismissed because of it you have grounds for a lawsuit.

Incidentally Microsoft (and probably other companies) has a great program called BizSpark to help startups get over initially prohibitive software costs. You might want to bring this up to the founders as a solution for them to make sure they're legal.

God I sound like a preachy SOB :)

But actually, the proper replacement is "unauthorized use of copyrighted works", which is not the same thing as theft.

The rest of your argument still applies just as well, but does not conjure up images of poor hungry mouths going unfed because someone is illegally downloading Photoshop. ;)

As far as MS goes, BizSpark[1] is so good that it actually speaks to the founders' awareness if they're using MS software but not enrolled in BizSpark.

It's essentially all Microsoft software for free for 3 years after which you pay $100 and just license the software you're using. As far as Adobe goes, why not buy one Photoshop license for one machine and just share that? iWork? iWork's like $80.

[1] http://www.bizspark.com/Pages/home.aspx

I would refuse to work with the software, then state that there are alternatives that could be used instead.

You say that Gimp isn't an alternative to Photoshop, but I used it for exactly that. It's probably not as efficient, but it definitely gets the job done. If you've really managed to get into a situation where only Photoshop will do the job, then they really, really need to shell out the money as they would have to be raking some in to have that need.

The only thing that I think you couldn't use an open source replacement for would be a copy of Windows for product testing. And possibly OSX, depending on your market.

GIMP might be an alternative, but it might not be a realistic or cheaper alternative.

Run away. If they'll screw Adobe, they'll screw you.

As others have said, you should try to fix it.

1. Convert things you can to open source alternatives. Google Docs/Open-office should replace ms-office. The QA can happen on Linux, if it's a web-based company.

2. Make sure your founders understand this as part of the cost of running the company and know that they can't do it for ever. It must be in their roadmap to move to legal copies when they have funds.

If you find the attitude too casual and you are looked down upon on raising the issue, quit. Period.

So the tech startup hasn't properly taken technical costs into consideration in their valuation - that could say something about the organisation itself.

It is something you should be willing to quit over, but raise the issue appropriately and politely, and see what managemt's actual word is on things. THen make your decision. (They stand more to lose than you)

If you're not comfortable just start looking for a new job then. It's that simple. If I where you I'd bring it up with the most highest up person I can and if it fell on dead ears, I'd immediately ask for a termination of the employment agreement.

Interesting… I wonder if, say, Y Combinator could obtain site licenses — or some similar volume deal — on software like Photoshop for use in Y Combinator-funded startups. Seems like a useful, valuable service an incubator could provide.

just to say, it is not a yc company.

I think the root of the problem is very much the attitude that people need Photoshop and Illustrator for any startup that isn't a professional photography studio or a professional design agency. That calibre of software is completely overkill for anything but those purposes and it's sad that people use it instead of Pixlr and Inkscape out of laziness. Instead of finding the right solution for their purpose they steal the right tool for a million uses. Adobe doesn't charge $1000 because they want to screw people or push them to pirate, they charge that because it's Ferrari software for professional studios that charge $1000 an hour that use it as their primary tool. It sucks that all software isn't that good but not all cars are Ferraris, and for good reason.

As far as YC is concerned, I think they can do a lot better than blowing money on Photoshop for web developers.

That's a good point. There is a lot of software that can often fill the role of Photoshop in a startup: Opacity.app, Acorn, Paint.net, and so on.

I really hate the 'everyone needs Photoshop' argument but in reality if you're using it for a startup to edit some buttons and close crop some photos it's 'less wrong' than actually using it as your primary tool for making money. Photographers, designers and artists need to buy it. Everyone else should use less sophisticated software, Photoshop is overkill for anything you need to do for the web.

What are the indications that the software you mention are 'warez.'

the adobe one has a keygen thing, the rest are network file shares with license in a txt file.

Thanks. Even though my original comment was terse, I was honestly curious.

My company is going through the hiring process for the first time now, so we're trying to establish a procedure for managing licenses.

It's pretty clear that when you're given a keygen something isn't legit, but for installed software it's probably not so easy to tell.

As a small business owner I can definitely see the temptation to do this. For someone not involved in software production, it may appear to be a victimless crime.

On the flip side I know first hand that some people just don't get it. A software license is a foreign concept to them. It's complicated by the various types of licenses: user licenses, sites licenses, family licenses, etc. Some licenses permit a desktop and laptop install. Some don't.

Just guessing: instead of handing you an installation disk and a license key, they tell you "on disk X there's the installer and the keygen"?

Legal question: if you install it, can you be held liable?

Well it's like this. This is a common thing seen in a lot of places. For the moment deal with it. Just so you know, where I come from some of the biggest companies use pirated copies of Windows. But once they get to a level where they can shift over then they inform, say Microsoft, and begin the transition slowly.

I think you should wait for your company to reach a level where they can do that before you really make a move. But you can also ask yourself. How much longer till you hit that kind of profit to even begin transitioning slowly. Too long for you to be comfortable? Well you aren't willing to quit. So search for alternatives to be used at whatever point possible.

Here's a start. Prezi for replacing traditional slides? (You don't have to build it all funky like the examples. You could still build it in a powerpoint-ish style.)

Before you suggest anything make sure you have an answer for when they look you in the eye and say "well what would you do then?"

the company doesn't even have revenue let alone profit, it is a 5 person early stage startup. that 'transition' is far far away. i guess im just used to doing the right thing regardless of circumstance.

as i said i have thought about what i would suggest instead but there are few options for photoshop. fortunately i dont have to make slide decks i was just giving that as a wider example in the company.

That's a tough call. Is spending $10'000 to legitimize their software use the difference between success and failure?

When you're building a company on a knife's edge.. how do you know if $1 you spent today that you didn't need to will bite you in the ass tomorrow.

  Is spending $10'000 to legitimize their software use the difference between success and failure?

yes, im sure there isn't $10k in budget to spend on photoshop for everyone etc.

What do they need Photoshop for? Is it a photography studio startup? I haven't seen any of those.

just so you know then, I honestly don't think MS and Adobe would look at you as anything but small fry. So dont feel too bad. Go ahead and check out aviary by the way. pretty powerful tool. aviary.com

Find a student with an educational discount or an online sale. Photoshop is NOT $1000. Get it for like $200-300.

Using an educational license for commercial purposes is still copyright infringement.