sorry, this will be a bit off topic...

I've been pirated software free for the last 3-4 years, even through the redicule of my peers.

Recently I gave a talk on software piracy in one of my classes (Tech Writing) and found out some interesting things:
1) College students feel that they don't have to pay for software, even 'tho a student price is available. Somewhat (not much) understandable since college students are, by definition, poor. I know. I am one I think that around that time 3D Studio Max was one of the most pirated programs -- everyone had a copy, 1% actually needed/used it for actual work. Most people had it just to have it. (Incidently, Kinetix does not have student pricing) The other oft' pirated program was StarCraft -- which everyone used! I say, if you use a program and you get enjoyment out of it, doesn't the development team deserve your money?

2) "Why should I spend $xxx on yyy since it is buggy?" -- I love that one. If you complain that it is buggy, don't use it!! I don't believe that there is any useful program of any complexity out there that has zero bugs. It is just an excuse.

3) "I'm just one person, what I do is irrelevant" and "Is it really worth $xxxx?" where other common excuses. Certainly 1,000,000 people who think their actions are irrelevant are going to cause a serious impact.

4) "It's not like stealing" It is. The only difference from shoplifting a copy of Quake from EB and burning your own copy, is that the latter can be done from the compfort of your home!

5) Companies have to invest time and resorces (read $$$) to find new anti-piracy techniques. The goal is no longer "We have to stop piracy" but it has become one of "We have to twart pirates long enough for the next version to come out." Think about it, if a company spends thousands (or millions) of dollars researching anti-pirate schemes, that is precious money that could have been used in other areas ie. hire more devs, better artists, better equiptment, etc.

Lastly any person that fancies himself a developer or some kind of software professional (yeah, not just the programmers) cannot pirate software! It's akin to cannibalism! What kind of professional ethic does that person subscribe to? It's like stealing from your family.

Anyway, that's my rant/rave/comment on the software piracy issue.
OberonZ

[This message has been edited by OberonZ (edited November 05, 1999).]

3DSMax doesn't give student discounts anymore. Instead they made a student version that isn't worth the postage it's mailed with.

As for why should I buy it? As mentioned before, and as mentioned in the trial papers against Microsoft, their monopoly has put them into a position to charge either less, or a signifigent amount more for their software. If you do not buy their software, then you are at a loss since the industry is being forced to push forward using it (because of the lack of alternatives).

Anti-piracy I believe in, but let's look at how Microsoft handles it. If you piss MS off and you are a major company, they WILL revoke your license agreement, and they WILL call the FBI on you for using pirated software. I've seen this happen before, and it is perfectly legal (ever read your license agreements?). That's the lowest form of 'cracking' down on piracy I've seen.

And companies really don't put as much effort into anti-piracy schemes. It's too easy now to crack that stuff, and I think they'd rather not waste resources on something like that. If I remember right, Origin decided about 6-7 years ago to drop the majority of their copy-protection for this reason.

As for Microsofts pricing policy, I think it flat out greed. Why the hell do they have to take a product and make a basic version, enterprise version, profession edition, super turbo 2 edition, etc. Gimmie a break. Like VC++6 and VB6 - over a $1000 for a usable system. I was barely able to afford version 5 of both (I'm not paying student versions here). Pretty soon, they'll force the hobby programmers to quit!

Why do we blame everything on old Billy? Because he's the scmuck that sits there and shows off his new os to the world.

Jim Adams

In time you'll see the next renovation of Windows 98. Until then you can use 98 SE, or NT4, or NT5 but please don't complain about the price. If you can't afford it you probably don't need it.

Anyhow...

------------------

Lack

i was over a zdnet and saw that win2k upgrade will be $219 dollars! we're not talking mexican pesos here boys and girls but real american greenbacks. there is only one thing i hate worse than big government, and that's big business.

i cannot believe how arrogant bill has become in his software pricing. while the prices of everything computer related spirals downward (cost of hardware, monitors, internet service, etc) the cost of bill's buggy, broken software continues to increase! what a joke. microsoft is certainly the most predatory business on the planet. much worse than the bell-telephone monopoly, or ibm's stranglehold on the computer market 25 years ago.

the few competitors that bill doesn't destroy he assimilates. anyone who would dare go up against him either ends up standing in the unemployment line or at the wrong end of a microsoft lawsuit.

i cannot say that i didn't see this coming though. i remember years ago when there were a few fledling OS compeititors. you remember their names: OS/2, Next OS and so on. microsoft killed them and herded us into his fold like sheep. now 95% (plus or minus a bit) of us all use microsoft OSes, microsoft browsers, and play microsoft games. bill knows this all too well and has decided that $100 for a buggy OS upgrade is simply not enough and now we should be happy to $219 for what should be a free upgrade.

bill's desire to have more money than god should worry all us game programmers too. bill has tried and tried to get programmers to use his directX API. for years we resisted, but slowly he has got most all of us to use his damned directX. but now what's to keep billionaire bill from charging us to use his directX API in our software? ANSWER: nothing. that scares me.

obviously the government doesn't scare him, and there certainly aren't any competitors that scare him. i fear the day will come when we all have to pay a $10-per-copy royalty to billy for all the great software we make that uses DX.

i know alot of you think you have the solution: linux. i agree linux is a good thing, but it needs to mature in a hurry. funny thing is i'm waiting for the day that microsoft introduces it's own version of linux. they are probably arrogant enough to charge people 200 dollars for it and to stab businessess for multi-user licenses!

philanthropy: i live in the seattle area and i'm sick and tired about all the local news coverage on what a great philanthropist billy is. sure he gave away a billion dollars. but he gave it to his OWN charity. that's not throwing the gold very far from the pot there bill. if he was truely a giving man i would think that he would give out at least 1 free software upgrade to show the world what a great guy he is (besides, us computer geeks are the ones who put those 90 or so billion dollars in his pocket to begin with).

the guy is only a few benjamins short of a 100 billion dollars and he's such a sting that he's gonna gouge us $219 dollars for a software UPGRADE. all i can say is that i hope god is taking notes on him.

finally, what a shame that the inventor of GUI OS software never made a dime from it. steve jobs and apple stole the idea of GUI (graphic user interface) and the mouse from xerox PARC (palo alto researce center), and bill inturn stole it from apple. and today bill has 90 billion bucks and xerox got squat. i think the boys over at xerox had better hire some better lawyers.

i'm not saying that miscrosoft is the anti-christ, but i am saying that it's a predatory company that needs to knocked of it's king-of-the-hill position.

that's my 2 pennies worth (plus or minus a couple)