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Does software piracy hurt the open source community?
Suarez-Potts thinks it's bad for everyone including the open source community since pirated software theoretically takes "customers" away from open source projects. For example, a college student may never end up downloading Open Office since he copied Microsoft Office from a friend, but that's not to say it hurts the money-makers like Microsoft at all. A little bit of piracy helps to establish big company's products as "the standard", hurting open source projects even more and making it harder for them to get their foot into a user's door.
Now we'd like to pose a question: Like the college student used in the example above, does pirating software generally prevent you from trying Open Source software or would you have put the cash down anyway even if you couldn't get it for free?
| Yes | |
|---|---|
| No |
Comments
24
Subscribe to commentsbradwjensenJul 31st 2008 11:31AM
This is one example that does affect Open Source. Though others have have points that some Open Source apps just aren't as good.
Even if Open Source apps are not as good, if people had to actually pay hundreds of dollars on the closed source apps because they could not get it for free from sharers, more people might use the Open Source apps.
P.S. I hate the "Pirate" word used here. It does not fit in with copies of objects like software. Pirating things are like stealing the one and only item, like money or a boat. Copying something and giving it to someone is different by a long shot, you still keep your original copy and never lose anything.. Companies might lose customers, but then again.. if someone uses a free copy of it - then they probably would not have bought it in the first place. So really the company lost nothing, but gained a user.
AmeristJul 31st 2008 12:08PM
I work in IT for my company and whenever someone fkux up their IE browser or it stops functioning properly (as it is wont to do) I install Firefox for them to keep them working. It's my way of contributing to the open source cause. FF is much more flexible and I find that it's just as secure if not more so than IE7.
KenAug 1st 2008 10:22AM
Also means you don't know what your doing.
ArtIsLightAug 25th 2008 11:13PM
I believe pirating software hurts every user, because it is simply wrong. It is very tempting to use pirated software, because you instantly save thousands upon thousands of dollars, but it is still not right.
Learning from commercial software, however, is a great key to knowing what features to (and how to) include in your open source program.
If the world of online open source communities will keep dedicated to doing what they know they should do, (if they feel they should contribute,) and they contribute faithfully in developing, bug fixing, using, helping others with questions, etc., etc., they will keep alive the spirit of open source with the actions that produce the future of a free-er world.
Thanks for listening, God bless,
Benjamin Bailey
http://minosafilms.wordpress.com/