How Pirated Software Impacts Free Software 530
jmglov writes "Dave Gutteridge has an unusual take on why people are not interested in saving money by using a free-as-in-beer OS like Linux or *BSD: because Windows is free. At least, that is an all-too-common perception, thanks to bundling and piracy. Bundling is a well-known problem to the adoption of open source operating systems, so Dave takes a look at the piracy issue in depth. His title may offend you, but his well-written article will most likely get you thinking hard about the question, 'how much does Windows cost?'"
Very true.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm going to post this anonymously for obvious reasons. I have a few Windows XP licenses, but they are all OEM XP Home/Media Center licences that came with the computers. Those systems were so crapified by the OEMs and/or in such a bad state (my wifes computer was a mess when I took control over it) that even reinstalling the OEM version would have been a major headache.
I help exactly one person with an OEM XP Home machine and it gives more headaches than my custom installs. My custom installs are based on a Corporate Edition Windows XP Pro. Those never give problems unless it is hardware. Simply said: Windows XP Pro Corporate^WPirate Edition gives me better *value* for less money. It's the only software I pirate: all other programs are either free as in beer (iTunes) or free as in Freedom (OpenOffice, The Gimp, Firefox, Thunderbird.....)
Just to appease those that say I should switch to Linux: I'm typing this right now on Ubuntu Linux, but I have a long way to go to convert all machines that I maintain.
Re:Very true.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Flip side (Score:5, Interesting)
I pirate everything I can. Never paying for any of the software I use. I start using Debian on my servers. Wow this is better then NT!
I then start using it on my workstation, and discover I like it MORE then the free copy of Windows I had.
I miss the games that I played (but never payed) on Windows. I miss the Apps like CorelDraw, MS Office, and all the games. But then I discover FREE software that works almost as good.
I now use Linux exclusively on my workstation, my Moms, my Wifes, my In-Laws, and a few of my Clients PCs too. I use Linux because it is better not because it is free.
Re:Very true.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I just keep leading by example... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the laptop of a blonde college-girl, I installed F7 and then installed vmware server and client along with WindowsXP Corporate^WPirate Edition. (She calls it 'baby windows') From that platform, she runs all the stuff she needs or wants... Linux stuff for as much as possible and "baby windows" for anything she can't figure out. So far she's ecstatic about Linux... it doesn't crash, it doesn't slow down after it has been running a while and it doesn't get the spyware/malware crap that she managed to collect while running Windows. I have also given her other pointers when it comes to other activities such as music downloads... (simply, I advised her to NOT DO music downloads... share them on the school's LAN and if you can't find what you're looking for that way, ask any guy to download it for her...of course he will! She avoids the risk and the complication.)
I recently introduced a very handy VMWare appliance (ESVA if you're interested) to my brother (Let's call him Microsoft Bob
My point is, sometimes you just gotta find the right catch...
Re:Very true.... (Score:5, Interesting)
No can do. I would have to pay $200+ for a replacement OEM disk (not even a real Windows disk by the way - you can't add foreign language support from the OEM image, you can't repair a damaged installation - it's just a fucking hard drive image).
I still have the piece of paper with your license key and the hologram, I said. Not worth anything, they said. I called Microsoft, same answer.
Luckily I had a Ghost backup. Ghost had crashed as it finished the last disk, but luckily the disk was readable. How likely is that? Crashed AFTER the the last sector wrote.
My machine works again, but I still can't get Asian input support - the OEM never had that - joy!
This may be a "grey" area ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Start with a retail version and build an OEM version that will accept your OEM license key.
Is it "piracy" then?
I've done this when I want a completely clean install at work. None of the OEM crap. Just vanilla WinXP.
The only downside is having to hunt through the vendor's website looking for drivers for all the hardware. And you don't get the vendor specific apps.
Re:Flip side (Score:2, Interesting)
That's the crux of the issue for me though, when you can pirate it, and hence get it free when why would I bother with putting up with "almost as good"? Unfortunately, neither my will to go legit, nor my concience are enough to make me happy with the whole "almost" part.
Until FOSS is actually as good I just can't find it in me to switch, which is sad in a way because I actually like the idea of FOSS and wish I could motivate myself enough to support it better.
Re:Very true.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Flip side (Score:4, Interesting)
A way to stay legal (Score:2, Interesting)
You can torrent an 'offical' OEM version of Windows XP and use the cd-key on the sticker on OEM computers. I ditched my OEM XP disc since it would always install miscellaneous junk and nvidia's drivers, which I don't need now that I have an Ati card.
Re:False pretenses... (Score:4, Interesting)
In what we call (or used to call?) first-world countries, no, they generally don't. However, in a lot of developing economies they do. I used to live in a country that falls into that category, and I can tell you that not only in companies, but also in government offices, locally built white-box PCs running pirated copies of Windows + the usual apps were the norm. The only place you'd see legit stuff is in the offices of large, international companies. I wouldn't have known where to even buy a legit copy of Windows in-country, if it can even be done. But you can get pirated anything for a dollar all over the place.
I don't agree with the article (well, to some extent) WRT the developed world, but it's premises hold very well in developing nations. Windows was there first, it was then and is now practically free, and because of that, is very well entrenched. Even in markets where Windows is expensive, Linux faces an uphill fight. In markets where Windows has cost parity, it's even tougher.
Re:This may be a "grey" area ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:OSS is not free. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Very true.... (Score:3, Interesting)
To me, those costs are higher than any Linux may have.
Re:Very true.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Most people I've met seem to be aware of the fact that they should somehow have backed up their data. It's just that they haven't come around to it yet (which, by the way, includes me). They don't need instructions on how to do it, or why to do it. If they had bothered, the CD or DVD-burner they already have will do just fine.
Their problem isn't managing weekly or daily backups with full system restore. Their problem is that in the last 5 years, they haven't really bothered to actually take the time to transfer even a small bit of their valuable (or not) data, onto a removable medium, that can be stored safely in e.g. a safe deposit box, or at a friends place.
Also, most people (at least those of us who live in a rich country, such as in US or western Europe) have more money than time, and if the choice is between learning to use a computer, or simply pay for a new one, when the old one is "broken", they buy a new one. I'm guilty of this myself. Not with computers (because I know computers, and I'm not happy with what I can buy), but with lots of other things. This year, I actually bought a new bike, because the old one needed a new chain, new front brake pads, and some oil on the gear- and break-wires. It's not that I couldn't fix that in an evening, if I had to. But I didn't have to, and besides, it was more fun to just buy a new bike. The old one I gave away, because a friend wanted it, and if I hadn't met him on the way to the landfill, it would have ended up there. I am not proud of this, but unfortunately (or fortunately for me) cheap manufacturing in third-world countries combined with high salaries here, have made me a consumer that can't even be bothered to oil his bike.
Re:Very true.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Windows is free (Score:5, Interesting)
No need to pirate for it to be inexpensive (Score:2, Interesting)
The Windows OS will live and die based on the quality of its competition (already there and then some) and third party support from developers (that part is annoyingly slow to come but it'll happen). The actual cost is no big deal either way (many many Linux users pay more than 3$/month for patches and aren't going bankrupt).
Re:Very true.... (Score:2, Interesting)
The real scandal is the phony license key (Score:3, Interesting)
See the OEM is just a hard drive image, so you can't install non-default features (like asian support).
AND you can't take a real Windows disk, install it on the machine and use the phoney license key that came with the machine to authenticate.
AND apparently, that phoney key doesn't entitle you to buy and install a replacement OEM image either - they don't replace the disk. The piece of paper is nothing!
Re:office is ... an example of ... what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Firefox proved to be the easiest switch. Easy install... and
Now, I did happen to glance at Open Office in the Version 1.x stages. I had my ideology all lined up... but it was so different, that time cost forced me to decline. Life progressed, and one day on a lark, I murmured, "Gee. What's Open Office up to these days?". Now, having first suffered horribly for 3 days on V1.x, I was *grateful* for the incredible improvements in the (then-beta) V2 next generation. I still run into amusements like printing workbooks instead of sheets,
But that last one is really tough. I am sorry to say, making the OS switch is NOT as easy as the app switches. My first day I managed to nuke my music player because I somehow turned off the GUI window. (A fit of completely inspired bravery into the command line and the manual got it back two hours later.) I'm still motivated. And I'm still researching, at a glacial pace. But that "comfy-MS" feeling is my vote for the reason no one has switched. The only reason Mac is surviving... is because Apple is pulling out every last ounce of strength they have to market themselves
Re: The resume point, I disagree. Borrow a friend's machine, whip up your resume, save the file, and that's the only windows-created file you'll ever need, right? If not, make the file yourself.. and get a friend to *check it* before you send it to HR.
Looking at the types of word docs I see being created, I have never heard of people rushing towards Office in stark terror *if they know of an alternative*. The problem is mindshare. "You mean, something *else besides office* can create a spreadsheet!?"
The kiss of death in business used to be the weird proprietary apps that only run on windows. However, we just switched to a unified server running clients... while not marketed as such, that windows server
The last remaining problem is - the advocate of anything new
I have a static workflow, so once I nail the pattern,
My email is visible. My remarks are sincere. Any of you Penguin hotshots who want to volunteer to be disaster-mitigation resources, let me know. I'm right on the money the perfect switch candidate. So for all the otbers like me out there, I'm game.
Re:Price model (Score:1, Interesting)
So, they're not getting busted by Microsoft, but they're getting busted by others...
Re:HEY! OPEN SORES FAGS! (Score:4, Interesting)
Faced with the choice of: pay for Adobe Photoshop, pirate Photoshop, pay for a simple graphics editor which will do what they need or pirate simple graphics editor, people will pirate Photoshop every time. If you sell a simple graphics editor that can be used to retouch photographs (red-eye removal, brightness / contrast adjustment, cropping / resizing, obliterating ex-boyfriends with copied bits of background) you will get absolutely nowhere -- and that's all because of piracy. And the crazy thing is, nobody ever has to make a single pirate copy of your program! Everyone's using pirate copies of Adobe Photoshop that they got from "a friend". They don't get the Adobe manuals, but they can get a book for about £20 that will explain how to use Adobe Photoshop to do all the stuff they could have done in that cheap graphics editor.
The publishers of all these "$EXPENSIVE_PACKAGE for n00bs"-type books have to bear some responsibility for this. They are next-to encouraging wholesale piracy of $EXPENSIVE_PACKAGE. Unfortunately, I can't see any solution that doesn't make things worse. If you insist for someone to prove that they have a valid licence for $EXPENSIVE_PACKAGE before they can buy the n00b's guide, you make it harder to give software and books as gifts (e.g. the software from your mum and the book from your little sister). And you can't read the book before you get the software. If you give the publishers of $EXPENSIVE_PACKAGE some right of control over third-party manuals, you're damaging the free market (to the extent that such a free market exists, what with the damage already done by widespread tolerance of rampant piracy).
The only thing that might come remotely close to cutting piracy is to introduce the concept of laches [wikipedia.org] in copyright -- make it so that if copyright holders don't do something to protect their IP, they lose it. Then this would encourage them to go after home users and casual pirates. But I suspect many copyright holders wouldn't really want this either. They want to eat their cake and have it; they'd rather you were using a pirated version of their software than a legitimate version of anyone else's software.
Re:Windows is free (Score:3, Interesting)
Seen it outside the OS (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This may be a "grey" area ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This may be a "grey" area ... (Score:3, Interesting)
But this is a significant obstacle for most people, especially when the OEM doesn't post individual downloads for drivers and utilities. Between the time Dell stopped shipping XP in favor of Vista and then started again, I had to buy a laptop for my son. I got an Inspiron E1505 with Vista Premium. As far as I'm concerned, Vista is a bloated piece of garbage. His 2GHz Core Duo with 2GB RAM ran like a pig and most of his games wouldn't work. Dell didn't offer drivers download at the time, only a recovery disk. So, to put XP Pro on the lappy I had to find OEM drivers for each piece of hardware in the machine. It took over a week (part time). And I've run into the same problem with HP (in fact, they are even worse than Dell in this regard).
But on to the subject at hand. I think the problem is that its hard to justify the value of paying up to $400 (Vista Ultimate retail) for the OS, when a new computer with the OS installed can be bought from Dell for $600. And what do you get for $400? A disk, a key code and a license card; no printed documentation, no free support, no money-back guarantee. It's hard to convince the average computer that a copy of Windows should be any more expensive than, say, a Pirates of the Caribbean DVD. And frankly, I would tend to agree.
Microsoft spends about $6.5-7 Billion annually on R&D. Let's say they have 20 products they actively support and develop (it's more, but I don't feel like doing the research) so that's about $325M per product for R&D per year. The latest episode of Pirates of the Caribbean cost about $300M to produce. When released on DVD, Pirates will retail for $25.00. Add in another $10 for seeing Pirates in the theater, and that's $35.00 "per user."
I realize this is a simplistic view and there's other economic factors involved. But in my mind I can't justify paying 10x more for a copy of Windows Vista than I do for a DVD movie release. The R&D, production, support and other costs just don't add up to being 10x more than producing and distributing a successful movie.
And the proof of this lies in the enterprise licensing market. I work for a very large corporation, more than 100k employees. I am told that, during recent contract negotiations, we got a price of around $100 per user/year for Windows OS, Office Pro, Windows Server User CAL and Software Assurance. That's a far cry from the almost $700 it would cost at retail prices.
That said, I don't pirate Microsoft products. As a Microsoft Partner I get more than enough licenses of all the Microsoft product I use for $300/year. If it weren't for that, I'd probably switch to F/OSS versions of most of the packages I use.