Why don't you pay for software?

I donate and buy software wherever I can. However, I'm 21, and currently 60% of my yearly income goes to paying for school. The rest of the money is for rent, food, and life - which my job doesn't cover. As such, I'm also a fair bit in debt.

I've donated to OpenOffice twice now, though the amounts haven't been all that much. I've also donated to HydraIRC and a few other FOSS projects. Furthermore, if the software is under $50, I'll buy it - end of story.

What I don't buy are the software products that are in the multiple hundreds of dollar range. I'm talking about 3DSMax, MS Office, Photoshop... and pretty much any creativity software. I simply cannot afford to buy them. At the same time, however, I don't want to deny myself from their offerings.

Granted, some of these companies offer "student" prices. But these discounts aren't enough. I'd buy Photoshop CS if it was $59 in a heartbeat. $300+ however is just too much beyond my budget.

By today's standards, my computer is quite old. As far as hardware goes: I can't afford it, so I don't get it. The hardware manufacturers don't see a dime from me. I can't afford the software either. The software publishers don't see a dime from me. Now whether I end up with the software or not doesn't change the dynamics on their end - either way, I couldn't of bought it in the first place. The fact that I still work on this old beast is proof positive of that.

There's a variety of software that I would love to buy, however with the economy as it is now.. gas prices are at an all-time high, it's best to save money and go with the free alternatives. Most of the time, these alternatives are better then the software you were oh-so willing to pay for. Sure, I look forward to buying software when I can, I buy my games. However, for software that I will rarely use but on my free time.. it's best just to use the free stuff, or 'torrent' it. I support it when I can, I throw a few dollars into donation to keep the project alive and to show that I love what they're doing. But, like I said I try to save money since gas prices are so high.. so free alternatives are my best bet, or simply torrenting the software for now, then buying it when I can. 80% of the software I do have is either given to me, or bought through the college I go to anyways.

You know, quit trying to act like it only goes one way. If nobody ever used a 'free' copy of Photoshop stolen from work or borrowed from a friend, that program would have never attained the popularity and widespread use that it did.

Software development, by it's very nature, is an open source process.

To jason , I use Linux , osx and Xp. I actually prefer linux , not because of price ( although free is nice ) but because its reliable. It does not crash. I do not need to scan my attachments, files ect.ect for viruses . It has no spyware. It runs faster. I can customize it from the gui all the way down to the kernel . So good software can be free . Good software is free. Open source can be profitable ( Conical, Red Hat ,Mozilla are all examples of this ) The Difference is the business model . Microsoft offers a product and free support..if you can call it that . The others offer support for a fee for products that are free.

"Quality costs more" is a silly principle to live by for any human who does not understand why the concept of money is so appealing to the masses with its flaws of generally turning humanity on itself.

I'd like to think that I download software, games, and music as a statement to the corporations, but in reality it's probably just because I'm living on bread and ramen. And I don't really like corporate involvement with my poverty, not to mention as a gamer and a nerd I don't like corporations in my industry.

There will always be the rogue 'fuck you' type of computer/video game company that rallies the types like myself, who can make an honest buck if they do so by honest means.

partly because i am a jobless student, and partly because paying for software means possessing software, and that is wrong by my personal moral code. knowledge needs to be free.

i'm on ssi

Let's say software is like currency. Microsoft is the mint. Pirates are saboteurs who hijack the mint and print bricks of money which they then plant all over the world. This money is exactly like the microsoft money and is even registered as legal tender. It's legally not counterfeit either.

Why would I earn money through hard work if I can take one of these bricks of fresh currency that sits on my front lawn? Add to this that almost all jobs pay minimum wage while the cost of living keeps going up (still talking about my currency example).

Not only that, but some of the saboteurs are stealing and making copies of the master plates, and leaving these strewn all over the place. I can now print my own money, and so can my entire neighborhood.

The Open source mint opens up with permission from the government to produce and freely give out money. They can only ask for donations to stay in buisness. The mint is staffed by volunteers and it's open to the public, so anyone can go in and print money or make new currency designs that are STILL legal tender.

This is what the world of software is like to most of us. In the past, software companies just kept making things harder and harder to pirate, but now they can't. Next they try going after the distributers, but the damage is already done since all that's needed is one copy released to one site or user and the distribution is out of their hands. The only easy target left is the end-user, but there's so many of us that these companies end up alienating their customers.

You can morally justify it all you want. "I'll buy it once I get a real job". The only thing we really have to worry about is if we sell anything we make using pirated software, and if anyone can prove it.

The controll of data is crumbling. Anything you can get onto a computer can potentially be copied and distributed with virtually no trace of the origional attempt. It cannot be stopped as long as the media keeps bringing attention to it.

Combatting piracy is like trying to sell air.

I keep reading that there are about a million bluddy people who are in my age group (13-18) who keep saying they don't have the money to pay for software.
You can easly go out and get a job and save up, but you keep on whining that you don't have enough money!
It's not that you want to buy the software - it's that you don't want to.

I'm not going to turn round and put you all down (hell - I'm not going to pay for Photoshop) but I'm not going to come out and say 'I'm too poor'!

I do not directly pay for my software as I do not used closed-source software unless I absolutly have to for work (and that is limited). Although I have made donations in the past to Open-Source projects, I am not counting that as payment as it was not required. The reason why I use Open-Source Software and will continue using Open-Source Software is two fold:
1) I do not belive anyboy enjoys being called a thief, liar, and cheat to their face. I know I don't. I have yet to encounter an Open-Source product that does this. However, most closed-source software assumes that the user is a cheat, thief, and a liar and forces the user to proove themselves with a 32 alph-numeric character string. Then they constantly check to make sure that the user is still not a cheat, thief, or liar with their BS update checks ( eg: Genuine Advantage and its like ). Not only that, but it is prone to MANY errors. I will give a quick example. A friend built himself a pretty nice Gaming system. He needed an OS for his games and chose XP. The copy of XP he bought claimed to have service pack 2 with it. After starting up the install, the key wouldn't let him finish installing. Since it was opened software, he couldn't return it! Several calls later to Microsoft ( and countless hours from many days wasted ) they determined that his key was generated for the SP1 discs not the SP2 discs. They gave him a new key. It installed, but wouldn't let him update because the new key failed its Genuine Advantage! He finally got Microsoft to send him a new install disc and key but a significant amount of time was completly wasted.

Second. I do not enjoy living with restrictions. DRM, Genuine Advantage, Trusted Computing, and all of that other rubbish is something I live without and will continue to live without. If I buy a cd or DVD I want to listen/watch that content wherever and however I choose. When I hand over payment and get an item in return, the transaction is complete and I will not let the previous owner determine what I can and can not do with the item. I am not going to support anyone or any software that is going to restrict me from using things I own. Considering that most software that demands payment has some of these restrictions in place (or supports these restrictions), I will not buy them. Open-Source software lets me see whats going on and gives me the freedom to do whatever I want with it.

It isn't that I do not want to pay for software, its that I do not want to live with rubbish restricitons.

I will not use software that does not trust its users and I can not trust software code that I can't see. It is asking too much of me to spend my time, money, and effort into a company that doesnt give a s**t about me.

I and my computers live free.

If people don't have to pay, they won't.

Even folks who use the Linux distributions don't pay voluntarily. It's support that folks pay for and they only pay when it's broken.

There's a reason business is not ready to put new innovation in open source -- they don't want to have to give it away and people won't pay unless they have to.

Well lets see, since its free you might as well take it right. And if the free competiton is as good for what you need to get done as the others thats a total plus. I know that they love it when you donate but I mean hey who really does...huh.

Well,very good question. On my part it's been a question of get it now and I'll donate later. And of course later is never. I should make an effort, really.

@Jason : "The only reason OSX works well is because it ISNT free"

I beg to differ... Being an OSS (Open Source Software) developer (not paid) for the OpenDarwin project (recently deceased) which is how OS X got ported to x86 architecture (Intel processors, anyone?) I have seen a majority of the code for OS X. Do you know what FreeBSD is? Well, it's Old-School OSS. Do the research, dood. UC Berkley has put the source out there for almost 3 decades for guys like you, me, or anyone else to hack around with.

What does this mean?

OS X is based on BSD UNIX. REAL UNIX. And the source code for this is freely available. The software is freely downloadable. The future is in OSS. Freely distributable software is running on everything from your Cell Phones (Linux), to TiVO's(Linux), to PlayStations (PS2 Linux), to Google (Linux, primarily), Yahoo (Linux/FreeBSD/etc), to your toaster.

Point: if you want to knock Free Software, don't do so without noticing a couple of facts. Free Software (OSS, included) is running all around you on the internet. When you IM on your PC/Mac/Whatever, to when your call is relayed to your home phone, or when your text message gets sent from cell phone, to a PDA, all that information goes through one of the biggest Open Source/ Free Software projects ever created, The INTERNET.

Final observation: Know whereof you speak.

"All your software are belong to us."

Quite simply, Mr. Programmer, I don't want you to make money off software. I want to see you write software that's useful for no other reason than because you're helping a guy out. That's your obligation. That's your lot in life as a programmer. If you're too selfish for that honor to be enough for you, then find another hobby or career. You shouldn't be programming.