What a joke...software companies claim open source = piracy

[jmadero]

I totally agree Benjamin, unfortunately as it grows I see a growing trend of noobs asking for help doing clearly illegal things....but I doubt this is what MS is trying to prevent, they just are crying over lost market share as Linux (and unfortunately the greatest pirating company of all in Mac) produce better products.

For my mac comment, I know that they are build on Unix, I just hate that they try to take credit for things that aren't theirs and then refuse to provide anything in return.

All I can say is hopefully the ....individuals....in the US government see the scam and refuse to listen...I have my doubts to say the least

[elija]

All I can say is hopefully the ....individuals....in the US government see the scam and refuse to listen...I have my doubts to say the least

Don't hope. Act. Write to your politicians or go and see them in person. Ask them if they would make it illegal to give away apples you have grown in your garden. When they say "no" ask them if they are going to support making it illegal to give away software you have written. Ask them if thay have been promised funding by the Business Software Alliance to support such a thing. I bet they won't answer that one.

Then you can contact the press and say that when you asked your representative if he / she was getting paid to support making open source illegal they didn't deny it.

Get other people to act. Tell your politicians that they will lose your vote is they support such a thing.

To stop this kind of thing you have to act and sadly, you have to think sleazy!

Do you guys have an equivalent of The Open Rights Group. If so join!

I hope this doesn't count as politics

[meton_magis]

you cant compare software to government economic systems. it just doesn't apply. in order for you to get a free chair, i must loose a chair. but in order for you to get a free copy of a piece of software, i must loose the time an energy require in order to transfer that copy of software too you, which is nowhere near the same loss vs gain.

software isnt a physical commodity, its an intellectual property, its more comparable to an idea than a chair.

oh, and the biggest thing to promote software piracy is microsoft. nothing inspires piracy more than a 300$ price tag.

linux users are probably the most familiar and concerned with legality o their downloads.

IT'S THE DERAILINATOR!!!

Rivalry (economics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the comparison of propriatary software vs free (BOTH libre and gratis) software can not be compared because they are not the same type of good.

Windows and mac (but I'll pick on windows) are by tort, rivalrous goods (it is illegal to distribute goods without the license to do so. Each copy of windows may only be used on 1 computer.) From a supply perspective, microsoft can sell as many copies as they want, and never run out of bits. However viewing from the consumers perspective, the license to use windows on 1 computer may only be used on 1 computer at a time.

From microsoft's perspective, windows is an exclusive / non-rivalrous good, in that they have unlimited supply, but can exclude others from using it (legaly).

Linux, being under the GPL, is legaly non-exclusive, and it is a standard, non rivalrous because there is no fee for the software (only support, which is.)

so comparing these goods is in itself not possible, because they are not of the same catagory.


Linux would only be communist if a government taxed all OS makers (and anything else it could) to subsidize linux development, and then provide that good at a significantly reduced cost to the population, whether they want to use it or not. (really, communism is just the enforcement of total socialism, there is no economic class of communism, only a communist ideology.)


gotta run, will post more later.

[TaZMAniac]

Viewing it from my prospective, using Windows promotes piracy especially in these tough economic times or in a poor country. After shelling out several hundred dollars for a OS you will then need a few more hundred dollars of software to do the basic tasks such as burning Cd/DVD's, word processing, digital photo editing, video editing, etc.

Using open source apps not only saves the consumer money it also promotes better software in that anyone can add features or write better code for a sub-routine because the source code is freely available.

Users are not locked in to a handful of developer's ideas of what they consider a great feature. Open source developers also seem more willing to take users feedback and add those suggestions into a new release. I applaud and have the utmost respect for open source developers as they do it for the betterment of the community and not for economic gain.

Just my 2 cents.

[lamoxlamae]

I fully agree. Who wants the software on thier computer to cost more than the computer itself? Making it worse, "new editions" that cost even more than the ones before them come out every few years and they expect you to buy it or "fall behind". Some that have subscriptions take this even further and make you need a brand new expensive subscription PLUS the cost of software with every major upgrade.

To be honest, switching from costly softwares to donation, open sourse, or otherwise more fairly priced softwares is the biggest blow that can be made against such a ridiculous business model. It's good to see that the "big guys" are finally taking notice and howling over it.