Will you keep on getting free software?

[John Klyne]

Okay, I saw a post about free software and thought I should make another one related to yourself always getting free software.

Tell me why you get free software, and I'll come right out, (WITH NO HARD FEELINGS) and say why you shouldn't. Feel free to start posting as much information as you can related to yourself and why you should get pirated softwarae, because once I'm done, you should have second thoughts.

NOTE: Please do not post one liners- if you do, please edit your post. to one acceptable as the rules may say.

This is the crossfire section, and I will do my best to get you to think twice before pirating software.

Another NOTE: This is one of my more.....intense opinionated posts, and I will make my best efforts show as to why you should not pirate software....Testing my debating skills, for a future career I have in mind so feel free to contradict me at any given point.

Good luck.

 

[ShadowmasterX]

I keep getting free software because I do not have money to buy it myself!
I also download freeware because they are useful and I do not have to worry about payments.

Why do I buy software if I can get freeware?

 

[John Klyne]

You keep on getting free software because you do not have the money to buy it yourself.

Well what if I said this,.......have you ever heard of a circle?

just like this letter..... " O"

notice how it connects. now think to yourself, isn't the economy pretty bad or going down the drain during these months?

Well did you feel sorry for all those people that got laid off of sony? all 6000 of them? I bet you did.

Did you feel sorry for 10% OF THE ENTIRE EA STAFF being laid off? I bet you did. Did you feel sorry for anyone that got laid off???

Why did they get laid off is another good thing to mention. The companies have less money, to support the staff. Why don't they have money?.....because of YOU! YES YOU!

It is because you people believe getting these pirated software on the computer for your use is ....

OMG I am so glad I found it! Well let me say this........anyone and I mean ANYONE AT ALL, that does pirate software, is HELPING to make sure these laid off workers stay LAID OFF!

It's like the O I posted above....it is connected.

When you buy a product, the company gets money and thus pays it's workers, and may even start hiring more. Well if you pirate the software....you don't help the company, and thus actually help the company fail in some way.

Now tell me do you like pirating software? Of course you do, it is a free way to get software or even games in that matter. Tell me this, do you like helping to make these companies lay off THOUSANDS OF WORKERS? Well if you do, keep on pirating software!

Now let me say this as well, You said you don't have money....
A. You're too young.
B. You're older, and with a job. If this is you....what if you just got laid off, from your EA staff position, or Sony staff position. (Your ownly source of income)......will you keep on pirating software or games from any more companies? just because you can't afford it)??

Please, and I mean it, TELL me if you love having people to be fired, tell me if you like having no source of income....because that is ALL you do when you pirate software.

Feel free to set up a rebuttal.

 

[Soki]

Very good point there. I do not feel like arguing...
But rather throw something in there...

If they only had lower prices for certain things, then we wouldn't be looking for free stuff. We, humans, are lazy fat lards with legs and arms... Lol. That is is to it. "By the time we know it, we won't be worrying about prices. We will be worring about how you would survive". Well, I heard that from a video game. xP

Just random as I am not doing well. I am suffering from 8-hour boredness waiting for a pirated game to finish downloading...

Nah, I am just joking, but I really am sick.

 

[ShadowmasterX]

But... if we kept on buying, then the economy would never go down, that means that the economy will go up, and eventually crash bigtime.

If we were not to buy anything atm, then supply and demand will cause prices to go down, lowering imports, and increasing the economy as we buy during that time.

 

[Mongoose92]

Personally, I do not pirate software, but I can see why;

Some developers software is ridiculously expensive (3D Max?!) If you are a hobbiest, or new developer, chances are you cannot afford it.

Support is often lousy, and people feel ripped off when they have an issue and receive little support.

As for high prices helping the economy, if things are stupidly expensive, people will not buy them. People buying has little directly to do with our current crisis, which was caused by loans handed out at stupid rates to clients who by rights shouldn't have got any.

Again on the economy side of things, the small percentage of people pirating played only a small role in the recent (and general) sacking of employees. The main cause for these downsizes is due to increased costs of;
- power
- packaging (substantial!)
- rent
and also the fact that, due to the credit crunch being given massive media coverage (rightly so!), most people do not want to go and spend money, so sales are down. This is another cycle:

> international financial difficulties >> companies in difficulty >> possible small downsizes, increase in prices for businesses >> people are worried about jobs, falling currency etc. >> people spend less >> sales go down, overheads go up >> jobs are cut >> people are worried about job security >> back to spending less

back to the topic, I don't pirate software, but for me the main reason is it's illegal and I don't fancy the consequences of being caought :biggrin:

 

[Kayos]

Well did you feel sorry for all those people that got laid off of sony? all 6000 of them? I bet you did.

Did you feel sorry for 10% OF THE ENTIRE EA STAFF being laid off? I bet you did. Did you feel sorry for anyone that got laid off???

Sony and EA workers did not get laid off due to piracy.

In Sony's case they really do not even make games, they make hardware, you know, TVs, surround sound, Playstation, etc. The game studios they do own that make games are not even at risk of piracy. Pirates have yet to hack a PS3 to get backed up games running. So, that theory can be thrown out the window.

Secondly, EA is not laying off workers due to piracy, they are laying off workers due to critical new franchise not meeting there sales. Piracy had very little to nothing to do with that.

 

[xPlozion]

i continue to get free software because i feel that they care more about their software than money. they started a project from the ground up, and are not worried so much about the monetary value of it, rather than having a good, secure piece of code. Many linux distros are free software, and they are gaining ground, with ubuntu leading the way as far as the newbies go. pidgin is an excellent example of it as well.

So on and so forth, i feel that many free software (foobar2000, filezilla, aptana/eclipse, cdburnerxp, avg, ccleaner, tugzip, etc...) are better built or suited for my needs.

 

[Repneiras]

Why buy expensive $149 office suites (This is based on the regular price of the Office Home and Student, consisting of Word, Powerpoint, Excel and OneNote, from the Microsoft website) when you can get it's open source counterparts (Open Office) for free?

Why pay overpriced $699 image editors (Adobe Photoshop CS4) while you can obtain it's open source equivalent (GIMP) for free?

Open source software such as Linux, PHP, MySQL, Open Office and GIMP have hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of people dedicated to enhancing it's coding and performance ("co-developers")whereas closed source/proprietary software (which you have to pay for) only have thousands of "co-developers" and therefore less support for closed source programs.

-Repneiras

P.S. This debate is fun and more friendly than a PC vs Mac debate

 

[John Klyne]

But... if we kept on buying, then the economy would never go down, that means that the economy will go up, and eventually crash bigtime.

If we were not to buy anything atm, then supply and demand will cause prices to go down, lowering imports, and increasing the economy as we buy during that time.

The economy is going to go down one way or another, but the way it is going now, NOT pirating software that costs hundreds, could have saved a number of peoples jobs and could now probably have had a mortgage.

If we were not to buy anything atm, then supply and demand would cause prices to go down, lowering imports .....what does this lead to?....people getting laid off of work, and people losing their homes, their cars, their way of life.

The banks would not have fell, if people had a job to pay for their loans...once again the only way to get money is by working for it in some way initially.


MY POSTS IN BOLD

Personally, I do not pirate software, but I can see why;
Thankyou for not pirating software....

Some developers software is ridiculously expensive (3D Max?!) If you are a hobbiest, or new developer, chances are you cannot afford it.

It is ridiculously expensive but it toke a lot of time to create these types of software, and if they are in high demand they will cost more,....not paying for these things but getting freebies, may help you, but think of all the developers that you and everyone else pirating their software get from this.

As for high prices helping the economy, if things are stupidly expensive, people will not buy them. People buying has little directly to do with our current crisis, which was caused by loans handed out at stupid rates to clients who by rights shouldn't have got any.

If one of the people who got a loan, was a software developer, and got laid off, because the company does not make enough money to support all it's staff....the pirated software could have helped him have his job, and pay his loans.

Sony and EA workers did not get laid off due to piracy.

Yea that is right, they got laid off, because the games EA was selling for example were not making enough to support the staff, (or would have if it did not get pirated so much).

Secondly, EA is not laying off workers due to piracy, they are laying off workers due to critical new franchise not meeting there sales. Piracy had very little to nothing to do with that.

I underlined something in that last thing you wrote....well not meeting sales is because many of the potential customers were pirating the games instead...I think SPORE a game of theirs was the most pirated game in the world, on it's first day of being out....millions of people pirated it, that means millions times 50$ for the game (I think)....well you do the math, and yes it would have helped keep many sections of EA still up and running, it would have kept many people from losing their jobs.

i continue to get free software because i feel that they care more about their software than money. they started a project from the ground up, and are not worried so much about the monetary value of it, rather than having a good, secure piece of code. Many linux distros are free software, and they are gaining ground, with ubuntu leading the way as far as the newbies go. pidgin is an excellent example of it as well.

The ones who make the games, get paid, when the game sells.....more sales, the better chance they are still in business.

Why buy expensive $149 office suites (This is based on the regular price of the Office Home and Student, consisting of Word, Powerpoint, Excel and OneNote, from the Microsoft website) when you can get it's open source counterparts (Open Office) for free?

Why pay overpriced $699 image editors (Adobe Photoshop CS4) while you can obtain it's open source equivalent (GIMP) for free?

Open source software such as Linux, PHP, MySQL, Open Office and GIMP have hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions, of people dedicated to enhancing it's coding and performance ("co-developers")whereas closed source/proprietary software (which you have to pay for) only have thousands of "co-developers" and therefore less support for closed source programs.

-Repneiras

P.S. This debate is fun and more friendly than a PC vs Mac debate

Glad to see you like this thread. : )

When I said will you keep getting free software...I meant illegal free software, pirated software. Yea there are many free legal programs out there, ....but it is the guys that pirate software that they can't buy with money that do harm others in a way.

 

[Kayos]

Yea that is right, they got laid off, because the games EA was selling for example were not making enough to support the staff, (or would have if it did not get pirated so much).

I underlined something in that last thing you wrote....well not meeting sales is because many of the potential customers were pirating the games instead...I think SPORE a game of theirs was the most pirated game in the world, on it's first day of being out....millions of people pirated it, that means millions times 50$ for the game (I think)....well you do the math, and yes it would have helped keep many sections of EA still up and running, it would have kept many people from losing their jobs.

No, even if Spore sold more EA still would not have reached there financial goal which still would of lead to lay offs.

And Spore being pirated had zero effect on it's developer. No one from Maxis has been laid off, only the under preforming developers like Black Box have been effected within EA.


You should learn how to separate posts with quotes

 

[John Klyne]

Okay, this is what I know.

I know that people get laid off for many reasons, one of which is that their company cannot afford to pay them anymore or something similar.

Well, if you all bought the software instead of pirating it, do you not think it would have helped make the company some more money to maybe have less people laid off? .....?

 

[Kayos]

Okay, this is what I know.

I know that people get laid off for many reasons, one of which is that their company cannot afford to pay them anymore or something similar.

Well, if you all bought the software instead of pirating it, do you not think it would have helped make the company some more money to maybe have less people laid off? .....?

For a company as big as EA no. For smaller companies it depends on the severity of the piracy it endures. Most companies break even with there software if they have any business sense regardless of piracy.

 

[John Klyne]

For a company like EA that is true, I bet I can say right now, I have a lot less knowledge related to the gaming industry to even argue more about this, you were a pretty good opponent against my accusations.

Nice work.

 

[xPlozion]

i support foss software. not because it's free, but because bugs are found faster, fixed faster, and anyone can customize it and fork it into a new project.

OOo vs MS Office, OOo wins in my opinion. Firefox vs MSIE, Firefox again wins, because bugs are fixed much faster and there's thousands of eyes looking for bugs. Also, think of the community support in the projects, such as implementing new features...

again, i highly support foss. think of this though, in the end, the companies that sell their products have work to keep their current customers going to the better (foss) products.

 

[farscapeone]

Well, what about thousands of software companies selling $50+ products that don't worth s**t? We are overwhelmed with low-quality high-cost software. Software has to deserve to get paid

Another thing, did you noticed how often a new versions are released? Why? They put some minor changes make a shiny new interface and there you have it, a new version. After some time they stop giving technical support for older versions. So guess what, you have to by a new one although you don't need it. The perfect example is Windows itself but it's not the only one.

There's software that don't deserve to be paid for. I mean how can you pay $20 for a unit conversion tool. That's just wrong! :nuts:

I'm a programmer and I have the right to choose what software deserves my money.

About big companies, they don't depend on home users. That's impossible and they know it. You can't rely on users that don't actually have to buy you products to use them.

Here's something I know from my own experience. Software industry is all about corporate software, systems design for airports, banks, stores or any other company. That's software industry. Application software is just a kind of bonus, an extra income. It can't be the only source of company's profit. So those who think that piracy is killing the software industry don't actually know what software industry really is. I know this because I own a software company. I sell software system for computer, mobile phone or any other shops that need a database and auto-generated website. That's the main income. At the same time I'm making a bunch of application software for my friend or for myself and I'm giving if for free (you can see some of them here http://apps.leviathonsoftware.co.cc/). I believe that application software is there to help people, to make computers more useful to home users so by giving it for free I suppose I'm helping people :biggrin:. No seriously, I can't imagine myself selling that software. I mean how match to charge for something that I made for myself or my friend? How can I sell a peace of software that I made just to learn some new programming technique? Why should I? It's not all about money you know. Imagine the feeling that 100 000 or even a whole MILION people use your software everyday. That's priceless! At the other hand it's a kind of advertising. If you made really good peace of software and you are giving it for free there will be a lot of happy customers that will know where to go if they need something more.

Piracy is our reality, you can't change it and you can't stop it. If there is no piracy people wouldn't by software that they don't really need. One way or another software companies won't have more (or less) income. But one thing is certain, whit piracy many software companies become incredibly popular simply because people know them.

 

[rmaslic]

I Personally think pirating is bad but then again prices for things in the store a very expensive and sometimes of even bad quality. I think the government should regulate the economy seeing as corporate CEOs cant.

 

[farscapeone]

I think the government should regulate...

We are talking global here. Government :nuts:

 

[ichwar]

You all seem to be missing a big point. Piracy hurts NoOne. It costs no one but you anything to pirate a piece of software. If you don't buy and you don't get it, or you don't buy it and you pirate it, either way, the company is not getting any money. So, not buying software doesn't hurt a company. A company can write a program, and charge $200 dollars for it. Some one can get their hands on it and make it available for piracy, Now, whether no one pirates that available to software, or 200 million people pirate that software, the company won't lose a single penny.

Now, your argument is that companies are losing prospective pennies through piracy, but if that company doesn't own the penny, then to not get it isn't losing it. You see, a company can't lose what they don't have.
(as and aside, someone else pointed out, anth this is true, that companies don't go broke or fire people or anything like that because of pirate software. I've seen many many companies fire their employees, and never once in my experience has it ever been because of piracy.) In spite of this all I am still against piracy, I have never pirated and I hope that I never will. I am not saying that it is good to pirate, I am simply stating that it hurts no one to pirate!

Opposing view points anyone?
Edit:
Also, you must be careful not to confuse free open source software with free pirated software. Open source software is perfectly legal. Anyone who thinks that we ought to pay open source developers even though they are explicitly giving away their software for free and saying that we should not pay them is a nut. Piracy is different.

This thread is about whether or not you should use pirated software, NOT about whether or not you should use free open source software.

 

[farscapeone]

Piracy is actually a god thing. Where else can you find people spending their time and effort to offer free software for everyone without any rewards or payment? It's like a humanitarian work or like Robin Hood, robbing the rich to give to the poor. LOL