Slashdot Mirror
Software Piracy Due to Expensive Hardware, Says Ballmer
frdmfghtr writes "ZDNet is running a story where Steve Ballmer tries to pin the blame of software copyright infringement on expensive hardware: 'One way to stem piracy is to offer consumers in emerging countries a low-cost PC, Ballmer said. "There has to be...a $100 computer to go down-market in some of these countries. We have to engineer (PCs) to be lighter and cheaper," he said.' Does he think that cheaper hardware will make copying software harder to do?"
Sorry, bucko, but marginal cost is the cost to produce each additional copy. For software, that's the price of a cardboard box and a small plastic disc.
You're thinking of overhead costs.
Sorry, I generally agree with what you're saying, but you tweaked my feathers on one point:
Compare a nicely-fleshed-out Windows application, with automatic visual styles and Direct3D and OpenFileDialog boxes, with wonky Java applets that might run in a browser, and might just break.
NOBODY and I do mean NOBODY writes Java Applets any more. Java Applications are what have been working to displace Windows dominance. A few examples:
Azureus Bit Torrent Client
Thinkfree Office Suite
DataDino Database Explorer
Disk Analyzer
Games too:
Wurm Online
My 4K games
Big game list
So PLEASE don't mention Java Applets. You're likely to get stoned for it.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Ahem. Perhaps you don't know the meaning of marginal cost. You are talking about fixed cost.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
wonder if they actually sell much Windoze at the retail price of about $300.
You'd be really surprised. The $50 install on the Dell/HP/Gateway boxes often does not include a full version of the software on CD with it. This means that if the user needs a driver or their OS needs saved and the useless Recovery CD does not do the trick, they have to go to the store and buy a copy. This is amazingly very common. If you have a full version copy, your very popular...
First he says that iPod owners are all theives (which is weird, because most of the music purchased online goes onto iPods), now he's saying its the hardware company's fault that his product is pirated.
Let me set this straight for you, B-man. The reasons for these two phenomenons are VERY similar:
1) People mainly pirate music because almost NO ONE feels that a CD is worth $17. Its price gouging, its unfair, they stifle competion, and the record company fatcats are getting disgustingly wealthy by ripping off artists and the public while pushing a mediocre product.
2) People priate MS software because almost NO ONE feels that their OS is worth $300, and almost NO ONE feels that their Office package is worth $400. Its price gouging, its unfair, they stifle competion, and the coporate heads are getting disgustingly wealthy by ripping off coders and the public while pushing a mediocre product.
Clear? Good.
20 years ago:
Hardware:
5MHz CPU
512KB RAM
20MB HDD
14" monochrome CRT
Total price: $3000
Software:
MS-DOS: $60
Operating system = 2% of total cost
Today:
Hardware:
2.4GHz Celeron
256MB RAM
40GB HDD
15" SVGA LCD monitor
Total cost: $500
Software:
Windows XP Home OEM: $100
Operating system = 20% of system cost
The price of the OS has increased by an order of magnitude relative to hardware costs... and the cause of piracy is expensive hardware? Pull your head out, Ballmer.
Actually, Windows XP licensing requires that companies ship a full copy of Windows XP with their systems. Now, Dell does this true to its word. Sony on the other hand requires you to use their recovery suite and burn a copy of XP for reinstallation purposes.
The other thing is, XP copies all its known drivers to your hard drive anyways, same with Windows 2000. Those will never ask your original product CD. I believe 2000 only does so if you add "windows components" via their add/remove programs interface which lets you like add/remove solitare and such.
Software, on the other hand is information, which desperately wants to be free.
I don't think you know the full quote, of which you've only given half. The complete version, most often attributed to Stewart Brand reads thus:
On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.
Which changes your argument significantly, I think.
MSDOS runs on intel 8008 - 8080 - 8086 - 80686, and the Zilog Z80-Z8000 and of course the x86 clones from cyrix and AMD.
The apple had 6502 cpu with a completely different instruction set, it just wouldn't understand the 8080 instructions. My Radio Shack CoCo with a 6809 wouldn't understand and neither would my COSMAC ELF with it's RCA 1802 processor and a Whooping 255 Bytes static ram. Besides the other thing that gives you away as a troll is you called it an Apple2e, any self respecting Apple used would have called it an Apple][e or Apple IIe!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds