Nothing new about that. Only surprise is that it's deemed newswowrthy these days. The authorities have cracked down enough on DVD and CD bootleggers that they're discreet enough to keep their discs and catalogues out of sight these days but the software pirates have been largely left alone. Probably means the MPAA and RIAA have been lobbying the government harder than Microsoft and the BSA.

Oh, I know about the piracy enough, it's just that it's MS's current pride and joy on sale at least 2 years before they intended it to be!

But even that's not new. Basically, anything which has ever been put on a disc anywhere will crop up in Malaysia. I noticed that, when things like Halo and Breakthrough were released, there were bootlegs on sale the Sunday after the release day ie within 2 days. And that may only be because I didn't look in stores on the Friday or Saturday!

Longhorn has been floating around the net for the best part of a year..

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by Stoo
Longhorn has been floating around the net for the best part of a year..

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Ah-ha! That I didn't know, which really isn't surprising...

It seems that basically anything which ever gets released will leak, no matter how hard tight you try to make security...

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by Ming
It seems that basically anything which ever gets released will leak, no matter how hard tight you try to make security...

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*shrug*

Most of the time I wouldn't be too worried but that's been cited as one of the reasons Half Life 2's been delayed.

Doesn't help a games development cycle if a hacker steals all your code

There is also speculation that it was just an excuse put out by valve to cover the delays..

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by Stoo
There is also speculation that it was just an excuse put out by valve to cover the delays..

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Well, the game definitely wasn't going to be out by the original release date either way (from what I could tell this was largely due to problems with Steam), but I can certainly see how the stealing of the source code could extend the delay.

well, they didn't lose the code, it was just copied

Yeah but didn't that mean large parts of the game had to be recoded to ensure it wouldn't be vulnerable to cheaters with access to the source code?

Well, that's a bit pointless seeing as all the game trainers etc come out pretty much on the day of release anyway..

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by Ming
Yeah but didn't that mean large parts of the game had to be recoded to ensure it wouldn't be vulnerable to cheaters with access to the source code?

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Well possibly but if you would have played that illegal version (with it's missing texture patches) you would see that if this was all they had at valve that the game was a very long way from actually being finished in the first place.....

So this might just have been a very nice excuse for a new delay on this game.

As delaying a game for over half a year because of possibly hackers and cheaters that could now amend the code is pretty long if you ask me

And the Microsoft Longhorn that is flying around is just a leaked alpha / beta with loads of features missing (like the new filesystem and most of the new desktop stuff etc). So don't think Microsoft would be too worried about that. But I think that the Software market is trying to learn from the Music and Movie industry.... if you get enough attention in the media for your problem and spend enough money on senators etc there will be nice laws to solve your problems.

So I'm guessing we will see more and more of these reports in the near future

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by Stoo
Longhorn has been floating around the net for the best part of a year..

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And will probably still be full of holes and bugs by the time its released.

(Edited by JtB 04/12/2003 22:36)

LOL, that's true

Maybe if people start patching the holes now it might be okay by the release date

Oh, that's what open source does.. oops