I'm a professional web developer and have an idea for something that I think has potential

I'm a professional web developer and have an idea for something that I think has potential.

I found a simple Mac application on the App Store that a lot of plebs bought and paid $125 for and was thinking of a way to make some money off of this.

What if I set up a free (with ads) and premium web-based service (like a SaaS) but use just this paid application in the backend and use a GUI automation tool to control it using HTTP requests? That way I don't have to spend too much time replicating the same features and can have this up and running in a day or two. Will I be breaking any laws though?

Obviously this will anger the developer since I'm making money with his tool and fewer people will buy it because I'm giving it away for free but his website does not state what I'm not allowed to do with his software. If I changes the terms after I launch my service, will I be in compliance with his new terms of service that I didn't originally agree to when I purchased the software?

I have searched the web for a similar service and found that none exists. There are questions on Quora, Reddit, StackExchange about such a service and the answer has been a negative.

Attached: expert-coder.jpg (400x400, 18K)

>paying for software

Get professional legal advice asap.
I think it might be doable but you really don't want to get sued.

Just know that if one day he changes his endpoints that you are calling, everything will break.

The biggest problem that you will run into is that he can see that you are doing this. He'll switch the endpoints and/or use anti-CSRF measures, which he probably already does unless you've tested this and found otherwise.

I'm also assuming that the app makes web calls. If it's some kind of offline app that you can easily automate then your only problem is the legal one, in which case you should see a lawyer.

Sounds like there's a few legality hoops you need to jump through, not sure of how binding the EULA is where you live at.

It's a desktop application. There are no API endpoints as such. I am automating the application as

- Click this button
- Access this file
- Drag from x to y
- Click this, move here, Click that
- Click this button, Select this, type this into these boxes
- Click that and click this
- Take screenshot
- Export file

I'm also considering the possibly about extracting the relevant portion of the code by dumping the assembly commands and whether that would be legally allowed since I paid for it anyway. It will then let me run multiple instances which I can't do with the GUI version.

It's not a web application so he can't see what I'm doing unless the application phones home, which I can block.

The application doesn't make web calls. It's an offline application

This most likely violates copyright and trademark laws. This would be like you buying a movie for 25 bucks and then playing it for an audience in a theater and charging them money.

There are separate licenses available for this type of service.

how about you just build it yourself you moron. this sounds like way more work anyway

>offline application
What it does exactly? doesn't sound very useful

Lee, you better ask shekelstein about this instead of Jow Forumsentoomen

That could take months and not worth the effort for an experimental website. I'm just looking for quick ways to get traffic to my site. If I do it this way, I just have to spend one night. If there is any interest in the service, I could always develop myself it later.

It's an application for auto-routing traces on a PCB. It works much better than the autorouter in KiCad.

>shekelstein
Who?

building on top of another's platform is always a bad idea. doubly so if it's not meant to be built upon.

You also could just write a real competitive application and not need to deal with any law suits. You'll probably lose more money than you'll bring in by stealing it, so just suck it up and do it yourself.

>building on top of another's platform is always a bad idea
what do you mean?

Sounds to me you just have to do it, take a page from the book of zucc and then pretend you were the original all along

The thing is I know nothing about PCB layouts, there's a lot to learn before I even start coding it. It's easier to just take something that already exists and write a wrapper around it and put it behind a webserver.

How am I stealing anything? I'm paying for a software and then putting it behind a webserver.

look how twitter treated their app developers

>How am I stealing anything? I'm paying for a software and then putting it behind a webserver.
Are you serious?
Thats like saying paying for netflix and then burning movies to dvd then selling the dvds isn't stealing.
It is