Dad called me today with a sad tale to relate. The Abit BH6/Celeron 300A system I built for him over four years ago has finally gone belly-up. After I quoted some example prices to him for new hardware, he decided it would be best to build a new system rather than trying to figure out which component(s) of the old system had failed.
For some twisted reason I really like speccing hardware prices for new systems, so I hopped over to NewEgg and started researching. The final price for all the new hardware came to about $340. I seem to remember the old Celeron system, when I built it, costing quite a bit more than that. Unfortunately, Dad has had a change of heart since then, and has decided that he’d rather not use unlicensed software. I mentioned the possibility of using Linux and OpenOffice, but he said he would rather pay for the convenience of sticking with the Microsoft software he’s used for years. I can see where he’s coming from. I’ve always used Microsoft operating systems myself (on my desktop machine, anyway). I find Windows more suitable to my needs than the other choices (although if BeOS development hadn’t stopped, I’d be getting my Be on right now). But there’s one thing that I have never, ever done in my entire life, and that is this: I have never paid for Microsoft software that wasn’t a game, for the simple reason that I’ve never been able to justify the cost.
Dad needed Windows XP Pro and Office XP Pro. The cheapest prices I could find on those two came to a total of $322—almost as much as the new hardware itself. But Dad wasn’t fazed. I felt a little nausea, but I reasoned that since I wasn’t technically the one buying the software, I would be okay. At least I didn’t get all dizzy and need a drink of water, like the time I had to order Windows 2000 Small Business Server for work.
I think Microsoft’s recent push to stamp out piracy of their software is more likely to cause people like me to switch to free operating systems than to actually pay for Microsoft licenses. Am I more valuable to Microsoft using Windows illegally—and thereby increasing the demand for Windows-based products and services—or using Linux or FreeBSD legally and thereby decreasing the demand for Windows-based products and services? Piracy is clearly illegal, but in this case might it actually be beneficial to Microsoft in a business sense?
Comments
Arr
I stopped using Windows because I thought I would get an ulcer before the age of 25, and because using Matt's linux box was so easy and soothing.
Fry's
Course, the hardware is probably not as nice as what you spec'ed at newegg...
Software / developers
A friend and I had the same conversation only last week, first off I think if you can afford it buy the software (if your going to use it as your main PC/Software) -- for example companies should always buy licenses however - we are developers mainly in asp and .net, and quite simply don't make enough money to buy servers for testing and other software, but say Microsoft made us pay for the software we develop on... boom!! I would say 95% of Microsoft developers would have to move to free OS and tools. To combat this disaster for the company, Microsoft came up with the corporate key. But I think Microsoft should not be worried about piracy until it's going down the pan and need a quick fix monetary solution. -- If Microsoft decided to make me pay for my OS I would remove the operating system that same hour and install Linux and move to MySQL db, PHP. Lets hope MS is clever enough not too. :)
Piracy and Linux
Long ago (in highschool), authority figures told me that if I persued a career in software development, I would come to appreciate software and feel that piracy is wrong. This isn't really what happened, and I don't think it's accurate. I know plenty of software developers and QA engineers who pirate software.
Here is the long tale of how I changed my mind:
Long ago, I started using Linux. My freshman or sophmore year of college (can't remember which) I switched to Linux as my primary desktop OS. I had been dual booting for a while, but I finally decided that Linux had everything I needed (plus a bunch of bonuses), and it was far more nifty.
Bear in mind that my transition was more difficult that it would be for most people. This has to do with the way CWRUnet was built. You see, in the twisted foresight of the CWRUnet architects of the mid-80's, Fiber was the way to go. So at Case, we had fiber to the desktop. Yes, the desktop. Each dorm room had two fiber pairs running to it.
More to the point, over that fiber, the CWRUnet architects had decided to push ATM. This has nothing to do with cash machines. Rather, ATM is a data link layer protocol (like ethernet). It is particularly suited to multimedia traffic requiring QOS. Now, as should be obvious, this requires a special type of network adapter, an ATM card.
Fast forward to 1998. No one has ATM cards. So CWRUnet Services cracks open each and every freshman computer on campus upon arrival and installs one. This is an expensive piece of equipment. Once upon a time (the early 90's), the ATM cards on CWRUnet had more memory and processing power than the computers they were in.
ATM cards were also a highly unusual piece of networking equipment, and thus, there were no Linux drivers for ATM in the mainline Linux kernel (version 2.2 and earlier).
Fortunately for us, a fine gentleman named Werner Almesberger had written some Alpha-grade ATM drivers for Linux. Installing them involved patching, reconfiguring and rebuilding the Linux kernel, then executing a specific series of commands up boot to bring up the network.
After beating my head against this for about a week and seeking help from the local Linux community, I got it working. I had conquered the ATM network.
This is but one of the many difficulties I encountered while running Linux. But the reason I stuck with it was that at each and every step, the system was mine. If it wasn't working, it was my fault. And once I got it working, it stayed that way. I place a lot of value in that. Furthermore, because the system is open, any problem I have with it I know I can fix. It may take years, but if it's important enough to me, I can fix it. That really colors my interactions with the system. When I run into something the system can't do, I don't blame it on the vendor, like I would with proprietary software. I see it as a challenge. It's a problem that I could (theoretically) fix myself. It's a very different way of using computers, and one that some are not comfortable with.
How does this relate to piracy? Well, partially I don't pirate software because it's not worth pirating. There are free alternatives to almost all useful commercial software packages.
But more than that, I feel that, if you're not willing to take ownership of your system, your only other real option is to lease it. That means paying for your software and putting up with the shit your landlords throw at you.
Besides, if you pirate your software, and it doesn't work, your only recompense is to impotently curse at the company who made your system. If you pay for it, at least you can beg tech support to fix it for you.
Microsoft charges a lot for their software. But apparently, it's worth it to your Dad. He's missing the time, patience or expertise to put it all together himself, so he's willing to let Microsoft 0wn his computer.
I hear you, dude...
Install *nix...
tar -xzf mysql.tar.gz
./Configure
make
make install
vi /etc/my.conf
change "max threads" to 8
Bingo. Problem more or less solved, except for the migration of our existing schema and tables... and, as we figured out, even if it somehow takes the three of us two years to figure out how to get the whole thing working how we want it to, we've still saved tens of thousands of dollars.
Pirating
The funny part is I have received more free microsoft products (All legit) then I can use. Because PCC is connected to microsoft, I have recieved a copy of XP Pro, MS Visual Studio, and more. I have also received a free copy of XP Pro from when I worked at office depot because I did an "Online training", and I have a copy of XP Home which I received from a person who bought it and needed Pro, but could not take it back.
Although, because it costs so much, if I didn't have free legit copies I wouldn't use it or I would pirate it. My favorite alternative right now is NetBSD. I run it as my secondary machine (a server/workstation hybrid) and I can do most the stuff on there that I can on windows.
Oh, and about BeOS.. If you have an older copy, please let me know. I am looking for the last version before it went to this "running over windows" crap. I want to find the actuall OS version. BeOS is very neat because the way it was made, the whole OS and EVERY program in it is SMP compatible (which is very cool for us multi-proc people). There is a company (can't remember.. yellow something..) that is taking the project further, but so far I have yet to see any product release and I am not sure if they are still alive. Oh, plus they are charging as much as windows for their version.
Is the concept of piracy a moral dilema changed to a legal one?
Eventually, software companies recognized that their software was widespread and that many people knew how to use the softare. They didn't know how it happened- their balance sheets didn't indicate that their software was popular.
The software companies eventually looked into having copyright and patent law apply to software code and it happened- now they could persue those who copied their code and either fine them, prosecute them, or make them purchase the software.
Today, there is similar quality (if not worse) software on the market, to what was available 20 years ago and the cost is high. So, those people who want to learn the software will copy it, because they can't afford it. Or, they download a program, that follows the GPL, or any open source license, that does what they need and for free.
Aside from the little history, Microsoft and other large corporations need piracy, so that they will continue to have an influx of people who know their software, but who can't afford the software to learn it. Then, when the "poor people's" (sorry, had to use some sort of label) familiarity with the software lands them a job in a company who uses or needs it, they will recommend a purchase and the companies will buy the software.
One causes the other and vice versa.
Re: Pirating
Ironically, for an OS that was touted as being legacy free and on the cutting edge of multimedia technology, BeOS hasn't held up well. It's still entirely usable, but you'll be hard-pressed to find drivers for some very common video and sound cards. I'm hoping OpenBeOS will remedy that once their project gets to a release-worthy state.