Im the author of the shareware €śEdwins Power Tools€ť. Im not writing to sell my shareware. But Im sharing my recent awful experience with you
My shareware was decompiled, and modified slightly, renamed, and launched by someone as another shareware, and for a profit. This is the most immoral thing I experienced. I don't mind others copying my ideas. But it's not tolerable to STEAL my software code
The story
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Recently, I saw another shareware called €śExcel PowerPlus Tools€ť. I looked at the software, and surprising, its SUBSTANTIALLY INDENTICAL to mine, in terms of FUNCTIONALITY and even SOURCE CODE
How identical
1) Procedures source code are substantially identical line by line. Order of the lines are also identical
2) Order of procedures are substantially the same
3) A lot of variable name and values are the same
4) A lot of userfom designs are identical
5) A lot of controls names are identical
6) When controls are overlapped on my userforms, the same number of controls with the same names are overalapped on his userforms
7) A lot of the function names are the sam
8) I got a lot of €śEdwins Power Tools€ť in my message boxes. He got €śsome€ť €śBandwoods Power Tools€ť in his message boxes, even though that shareware is called €śExcel PowerPlus Tools€ť
9) I got an €śabnormal€ť function which uses web query to do an €śon-line version check€ť. He copied that also
10) I used a special spreadsheet €śmatrix€ť to do the custom menu procedure. A very very similar spread is in that shareware also
I called the author (who is in Australia). He refused to admit that he used by software. He simply refused to admit. He insisted that he only read my user manual, and €śproduced a software which does the same things from scratch€ť
Any idea? Any comment? Or, any suggestions
Edwin Ta
MS MV