Crackulous is a software that allows you to easily crack any iPhone application, without having to pay a dime to the developer or to Apple. No need to say that this is illegal… In what seems to be a very ironic story, a beta version of Crackulous was pirated and leaked on the Internet before it could enter a full open-source distribution.
Erica Sadun wrote a good article about it over at Ars:
SaladFork, the author of Crackulous, called the leak “absolutely disgusting, and downright insulting.” He writes about his pride of development, saying, “[I] have released a new version of Crackulous almost every day or two, fixing all the bugs that had been reported up until that day. I was proud of Crackulous, and put a large majority of my free time into ensuring it will be the best application it possibly could be. I responded to beta tester feedback, and each version of Crackulous was better than the last.”
Did SaladFork learn his lesson? Obviously not as he wrote:
Several of you had noticed the irony in me complaining that a tool used to steal from other developers was stolen, but I hope you realize the difference in situation. iPhone developers almost always (99% of the time) develop applications for the App Store in hopes of getting money.