AmiBroker Founder Accuses Indians Of Piracy & Raises Hackles Of Investors & Traders For Racism

Most technocrats have a no-nonsense attitude around them. They are wizards in technological matters but are not so strong when it comes to tact and diplomacy.

They are straightforward in their approach and state things bluntly without much concern for the sentiments of the audience.

We saw this trait in illustrious technocrats like Steve Jobs of Apple, Larry Elison of Oracle, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and so on.

Tomasz Janeczko, the founder of Amibroker, a popular software used by stock traders to make charts, has similar characteristics of being blunt in his talk.

He shot off a testy mail to his vast client base alleging that there is “shockingly high piracy in India” and that he will no longer provide support for the software to unregistered users.

Janeczko also counseled Indians to understand that “software does not grow on trees” and that they should learn to pay for it in the same way that they pay for “food or anything that you consume”.

“Tomasz Janeczko groups@amibroker.com [amibroker]
To amibroker@yahoogroups.com
Aug 9 at 5:25 AM

Best regards,
Tomasz Janeczko
amibroker.com”

Janeczko also lamented that Google is not co-operating with DMCA requests. He also listed out the evil effects of piracy and the fact that it discourages the developer from investing time and money in improving the product.

Janeczko’s lament met with support from a number of users.

One user blasted software pirates by equating them to thieves who sneak into people’s houses to steal things:

“I just can’t stand these people using pirated copies of everything! They never think about the fact that end of the day there are people that doesn’t get the well deserved paycheck for their work! And that it’s no difference between using a pirated copy of software, music, videos and physically sneak in to someones home/office and steal things! They are basically thieves!”

“Unregistered users are burglars & thieves. Parasites who feed on the hard work & good will of others” another fumed.

However, Janeczko’s singling out India and Indians in his diatribe raised the hackles of some users who accused him of being “racist”.

One user complained that he is “really shocked that you would single out a race to treat it in an inferior manner”. He agreed that piracy is a problem but said that “to have a policy that openly discriminates against one race is a worse possible solution”.

Another user counseled Janeczko to implement stronger anti-piracy methods. He also opined that “Its not good karma to make racist comments”.

Janeczko reacted belligerently to both pieces of advice.

On the issue of “good karma”, he asked “How about not stealing. Would that make karma better?”

On the issue of better anti-piracy measures, he asked “Maybe a girl who gets raped also needs to “do something that makes rape difficult?” Is this is the logic you are presenting here?”

Janeczko was in no mood to stop. “Thousands of users from India use my software illegally and despite that they still demand support” he thundered.

“I am not politician and I don’t need to be politically correct” he added unapologetically.

Janeczko’s aggressive counter-attack left the others speechless for a few moments though they recovered their wits soon.

“Stealing is bad, making generalizations on race is worse. Trumpism appears to be catching on!” a user quipped.

Another pacified Janeczko by opining that “Not stealing is the right thing. The 8th commandment should be pillar of any moral being”. He pleaded with Janeczko not to generalize and “penalize entire race”.

Tomasz Janeczko also cooled down and struck a conciliatory note but was not prepared to concede his point that Indians do the most stealing. He produced data from Alexa to show that “61% of amibroker.com site traffic comes from India, yet only 1% of registered users are from India.”

He also dug into Google’s search records to show that almost 100% of the searches for the term “amibroker crack” originate from India.

Faced with such a blistering attack from Tomasz Janeczko which was backed by facts and figures, the distinguished user base which comprised of a majority of Indians was left red-faced. At the end, they vowed to spread the message amongst their brethren not to use pirated software products but to buy an official license.

“Instead of whining and complaining about a simple matter of fact and pathetically throwing racism cards rather try to educate your fellow country men (and the country doesn’t matter) about what is right and what is wrong … and until the majority of population can stand on a higher moral ground, all shall be treated like cheaters!” a veteran trader counseled his compatriots!