Websites offering a Synopsys tool for $20? EDA pirates or legit?
Holy smokes, folks, a reader just sent me an email where he has found several web sites that are claiming to sell downloads of a Synopsys tool for $20. That’s right– $20. The reader points out that there are actually 4 websites that seemingly are selling it at that price point or are pointing to the one selling it. I’m not sharing the website or the name of the tool with folks because I don’t know if this is a piracy deal or not, but at least on the surface it appears to be. I’ve made Synopsys aware of it, enquiring about the legitimacy of the offer and whether or not they even know about it. If it isn’t legit, I wonder what they are going to do about it? If it is legit—it’s, well, “a steal” and I’ll tell you what tool it is and direct you toward it.
Perhaps what’s more interesting is the websites offering the tool for $20 come up as front page items when one Google searches a particular keyword. The fact they come up as front page items on Google seemingly indicates the links and sites are hit frequently.
A couple of years ago I wrote a big feature article called “Who are you buying your EDA software from?” (the cover art featuring a lacy pirate arm with hook holding a CD won some business press award for our art wiz Mike O’Leary). At any rate, the article basically looked at the growing concern of piracy in EDA. The reader’s note today seemingly indicates that concern is becoming well-founded.
A few months before I wrote the feature article, I moderated a panel at a Synopsys Interoperability Forum on the subject of software piracy and its potential impact on EDA. One of the panelists was an FBI agent. It was cool to have a real-live Fed on a panel. At any rate, during his talk, the FBI agent went over increasing piracy issues in the United States and was saying most of the instances of software piracy were small underground businesses churning out mass copies of Microsoft OS, Word, Works, Excel on CDs.
The Agent went on to note that the FBI doesn’t get involved until the damage amount exceeds $100,000 and thus was noting that the FBI doesn’t get involved too often. I then chimed in and informed the agent that $100,000 is likely the conservative median price of IC design software sold in this industry. He looked at me puzzled as if to say “’really?–$100,000 is what people pay for one piece of software?” I then told him P&R software can be upwards of $500,000? One Copy! Gulp?
Then in researching the article, I found it really interesting that several folks noted that one of the saving graces—one of the things that will seemingly prevent EDA from getting hit too hard by Piracy–is that EDA software tends to be extremely buggy.
Imagine if that becomes a marketing excuse, “we intentionally make our software buggy to prevent piracy.” Seemingly, if EDA wants to keep growing at a decent clip, software piracy is an issue they are going to have to pay closer attention to. EDAC appears to be on top of the problem but as we can see, it apparently has a tough row to hoe.
Also, I wonder if some of the responsibility for the piracy issue should fall on search engine sites such as Google? Rockstars such as Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich have raised awareness of music piracy. Perhaps Aart, Mike and Wally need to spike up their hair and go speak to congress?
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