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RE: How I hacked Quicken and made off with over $600,000 - True confessions
I'm not happy when people hack/reverse-engineer software. I first flagged this post because of that point.
But... I respect you as a fossil in the developers world (compared to myself being a dinosaur), you got a good deal with the company who's software you've 'hacked', and improved the world as we know it today.
Either way, you've walked a thin line in the grey zone. You seem aware of that. And thank you @pfunk for asking me to re-read everything.
Comment above was edited and I appreciate that he removed the flag but it does mess up the following replies ;)
What the heck? I'm not promoting a book. I'm giving a reference to a book that is on google books. The book is being offered in hardback on Amazon for $.01 as used because it isn't in print. It is in the public domain.
i really feel like youre misinterpreting what happened here. i dont mean to be a dick or offend, but i remember reading in one of your posts that english is not your primary language... Is it possible youre misunderstanding what OP claims to have done?
Because this comment seems to be a gross overreaction to the situation actually described.
Really? Wow! This is called reverse engineering something. It is a local database file and not stored on any server. Plus my intent was to solve a problem and not make money. It just turned out that I made good money for my innovation.
The suing part I was worried about was the look and feel which companies go overboard on and is not illegal but can cause issues. So I had a concern. It wasn't because I was able to read the data file.
today, you could probably be civilly liable for violating the software license, because its standard language to prohibit reverse engineering of any kind.
in 1980 who the hell knows, im not even sure "reverse engineer" was a phrase then.
I don't think he's reverse engineering Quicken's software in the worst sense. He's engineering NEW software in order for it to be COMPATIBLE with the current software that no one wants to part with. He needs to KNOW the code in order to do that. I'm no patent attorney, and it is ten shades of gray, don't get me wrong, but I think it's totally kosher. Someone's gotta do it. Mike's the guy to do it. Bam. Up vote.
Thanks. Very well said. I like your daughters story too and I upvoted and followed.