Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
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I can understand dislike of piracy when it affects your wallet, BUT-
Piracy only means loss of income when the individuals pirating software/music/whatever would have otherwise BOUGHT that software/music if they could not have pirated it.
Software pricing is way out of whack, and many if not most individuals simplyt cannot afford the prices being asked. And if they can't find a pirated copy of certain software, they find a cheaper alternative, or don't use it.
The entities that CAN afford software at these prices are businesses, and my guess is that business purchases account for most of the income of software developers.
I have access (legal) to all of the software M$ manufactures. Do I use it? Only enough to learn how to support it for work purposes. Most of what I do personally is on BSD, or Linux, or Mac. And I have spent very little on this software- for example, a 5-user license for OS X, which covers all the Macs at my house, cost far less than ONE copy of Windows Vista. Most of the software on BSD and Linux was free; not only free but modifiable because I have the source.
I think over the next decade that we'll see this model of proprietary, binary-only software disappear for alot of users. We'll see more and more people moving to free OS's and software, which keeps getting better and better. And I have never understood why people would pirate an M$ operating system, when others are available, for free, that are much better.....