[Ciaran]

I am just curious.....

How do you all feel about pirate software? Not asking if you personally are a pirate, but I am curious to know how people feel about this. I posted an offer of some less than legitimate software to someone once and one persons reply was that they didn't approve of such things. This lead me to thinking about whether or not most people feel the same, don't care either way, or like sticking it to the software companies. So what do you all think?


Ciaran...

 

[Toshi]

that was me, and i'll state it again. i majored in comp. sci., i've worked as a programmer (for palm, inc.), and many of my friends work in the industry, especially for microsoft. given that there are open source and freeware alternatives for just about anything you could pirate there is NO possible justification for piracy. yes, the open source products aren't as polished, but if you care about that pay the developers for their work.

admittedly i'm biased: i wouldn't feel strongly about this if it didn't affect my friends' livelihood, and wouldn't have licensed copies of some of my software if it weren't for my school's license and/or my own educational discount. but my point stands.

 

[DHracer1067]

i could care less and i would support it. i dont pay for much of anything that i have right now. thank god for kazaa.

 

[Kornphlake]

I don't necissarily reccomend it but I do have one or two illegitimate programs that I use too infrequently to justify their heafty retail pricetag. I don't go out of my way to download or copy music, programs, videos, etc though. If you look at your resources carefully you can usually find that you're eligible for nice discounts or even free software from many vendors. Anybody can sign up for a free educational version of SolidWorks, it'll do everything a full version would do but it prints a "for educational use only" watermark on any print job. Microsoft offers free software to students in many technical programs, I got a free copy of windows XP pro that is totally legitimate.

I don't mind people making copies of their own CD's to play on a MP3 player or copying a program for a family member or friend but putting them out on the internet or a p2p network for anybody to have is where I draw the line.

 

[bean]

To me it depends on useage. If it's a program that you would normally never buy, than the software company doesn't lose any money if you download it. If it's something that you need and would buy if downloading wasn't an option, than you should buy it.