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The Pirated Software Problem in the 3rd World
RockDoctor writes "Dark Reading carries an article by one Nathan Spande who works in Cambodia. Locally he finds that OpenOffice.Org and MS Office are the same price ($2), or $7-20 by downloading. He discusses why the economics of OpenSource don't work in this environment, and how it contributes to global computer security issues through the "little extras" (trojans, spambots and other malware) that typically accompany such "local editions" of software. The economics of software outside the west are very different to what most people are used to."
Most of the big group releases do NOT have Trojans and other crap inserted. the big release groups pride themselves in having a clean release.
I love how the article has BSA FUD stuck in to add that little flair of "security problems".
is that it creates a level playing field.
Both MS office and OpenOffice are available at the same price and with the same level of support (precisely none apart from what google'll provide you with).
I'm not quite sure why there's any kind of surprise about this information. In the western world where you have to pay for MSOffice and Open Office is free, MS Office is still winning - why you'd expect a different result in an environment MS Office is free, is beyond me.
In my humble opinion the best thing to increase the penetration of Open Office around the planet (along with linux and every other OSS product that competes with MS) would be if MS introduced a completely secure DRM system to ensure that not a single un-licensed copy of their software was unable to function anywhere on the planet - forcing those that couldn't afford it to switch to OSS.
Always amuses me when people here bitch about WGA, as it has the potential to be the greatest force in switching people to OSS.
Open-source trojans.
Can somebody point me to the repository so I can include them in my projects?
liqbase
From the information in the article, it appears that the economics of open source work much better than the economics of closed-source, proprietary software. The business model of OpenOffice.org is perfectly happy when local vendors sell their software at $2 per disk. The business model that Microsoft Office is based upon is violated when that happens.
This is exactly how Microsoft kills off the competition.
They tolerate piracy because it has benefits for them. If people are pirating MS software, they are learning how MS software works, and they aren't using competing software. They can catch up later and demand their money; by which time, they're betting, most people will already be so used to Microsoft that they will pay up rather than go for a cheaper / free alternative.
If MS clamped down on piracy right now, then people would switch to cheaper / free products in a heartbeat.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I can say that although it is somewhat easy to find a shop that sells legal copies of software, most people just buy a pirated copy... why? because it's 1 dollar per disk, and the worst thing is that people do not see this as a bad thing... Personally, I don't agree to pay loads of money for legal software, I just use Linux and OSS, as most people would do if pirated software didn't exist here, but it does, so OSS has not much sense here anyways.
I've run into third-world stealware before. A friend of a friend recently managed to get one of her kids out of a muslim country, green card and all. One of the guy's teenage sons found a PC in the house running WinME and decided to upgrade it to Win2k with a CD he brought from home. The end result was spyware city, plus nothing worked right (probably due to drivers being misloaded or something). I reformatted the box afterward and promptly destroyed the kid's CD collection, before he mucked up anything else.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
1. Slashdot zealots are still using open source products...
...? profit?
2. Third World countries get better at using commercial software (for free)...
3. Big Western Corporations get better at protecting their software from piracy...
4. Third World countries get better at cracking said software...
5. Third World countries find themselves providing tech-support for western corporations...
6.
god and all that is holy and sacred on the planet ...
Free Software is not, repeat NOT, about cost. It's about liberties that accompany the software. For instance, in these poorer countries they're free to choose the hardware/software combos that suit their budget and economy, and not what Redmond wants them to use.
It also gives them access to the formats and internal workings. Meaning local jobs supporting the tools [ports, language packs, addons] are possible organically without having to first sign your soul over to msft [or whomever].
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
This means fundamentally changing the way people live.
Let's take the case of Bangladesh. We have about 150 million people here, although a large chunk of that figure aren't your potential customers.
Facts:
- All foreign-produced movie DVDs and audio CDs are pirated. Yes. All. You can't legally buy legit copies of this stuff there.
- All home / office use software is pirated, unless you're working for a top multinational company. Purchasing a computer implies that it would come loaded with whatever software you prefer.
- All games are pirated
The prices are astonishing. It costs about 1 USD for CDs, 2 USD for DVDs. It doesn't matter what's the content.
How do you promote any software when Adobe Photoshop is the default image editor? When a software developer can choose any tool he wants with zero licensing and distribution costs, guess which platform wins out.
People want the best software and want access to the latest music and movies. It's been very low priced since forever. I can't imagine how would anyone go about asking them to change their consumption habits.
No "piracy is theft" argument doesn't work here. People feel that they have the right to rip-off any foreign-produced stuff because those companies are profitable anyway.
WGA and other drm does not work with slow links. How can you sell apps that need to be online for checking if they are legal and licensed with forced big updates / patch downloads when you need to pay $0.10 or more a mb.
IMHO Malware is still going to be considered as much a nuisance in china, say, as it is anywhere else..... tons of spam clogging up your email account is the same for everyone. Not sure i agree freeware isnt attractive...its cheaper to buy a pirate disc than download freeware -except the pirate disc might contain added malware whereas the freeware wont. More likely problem (i'd guess)... the third world (as always) will provide cheap labour for human user-based scams... like call centres -but for the bad guys
i disagree, the west is very used to this problem. i for one have inboxes full of junk mail from trojan'd windows boxes. it doesnt get much clearer than this. particularly with the advent of a new popular os, there's probably hundreds of thousands of people getting keygens around the world right now.
Why UNIX?
One of the interesting things about Open Source is the completely unlimited distribution rights.
Besides putting it on the net, and distributing CDs, and USB driver, there's also the possibility of broadcasting it... A few minutes on a TV channel, either terrestrial or direct broadcast satellite, and you can transfer an entire CD. Just mux in some open source software into your DVB broadcast, perhaps only during times when the video can do with a lower bitrate, and some quite inexpensive equipment, that takes just one-time investment, can pick it up.
Also, in most of the underdeveloped parts of the world, I have to wonder if 802.11 isn't the perfect answer to all of this... Even if only a few people in all of the country can afford to download something, it may be able to be pushed to everyone else with 802.11 cards, through P2P apps such as Gnutella, (bittorrent is woefully inadequate here... and on unreliable networks in general).
And for the first open source program to be widely distributed through Asia with one of these methods... I nominate ClamWin.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
He's right about the difficulty in getting legitimate copies of software. He's right about there being a virus, trojan, and spyware problem, too. He's wrong about the reason. It's not infected pirate copies of software. As the previous poster said, those copies are clean.
It's the people who buy the latest best copy of Norton anti-virus...pirate...and never get a virus definitions update because they can't register their program. They think they are safe and protected, because they are running an antivirus program.
It's the people running pirate Windows and IE and Office with no updates or patches, because even if they can register them (and typically they can't), they don't have the bandwidth to download security updates.
And I'm not talking about mere individuals. I have observed the counterfeit Windows version message on the computers in hotels, and not a cheap ones, either. What else are the corporations supposed to do when legitimate software can't be had, and your English isn't good enough to make calling Microsoft to buy a license to legitimize your pirate copy a viable option?
How do I know all this? I, too, live in a third world country, specifically Thailand. I have looked for legitimate software. I have seen pirate software in major foreign-owned stores like Tesco and Carrefour, as well as in the well-known locales for pirate software like Chatuchak and Pantip.
As people live in South East Asia, I can see some people steal cable-TV, steal water, steal electricity, steal gas. And just like the article, some of us still used unlicensed softwares.
Do those things mean there is imposibble to make money there? Not at all, but they need to take some efforts. Like cable-TV companys may send out cable guys to check out the cable. The water and electricity company here(since they are the government monopoly in Taiwan), they rely on the police force to check out. The BSA (the organization almost equivalence to MS here...) also co-operate with the police to check the un-licensed software.
But there are some exception on software company, the local business agent of Billizzard send out worker to every NetCafes and check the number of copies, and charge them. I think they know the cops would not be happy to help them check out un-licensed WarCraft at NetCafe.
So now spyware-laden pirated software is considered same-as or better-than open-source software because the local vendors sell them at the same price?
I'd reckon that at some point there will be a grassroots movement against the spyware-laden pirates when Microsoft starts tightening the WGA-screws, or when the people get tired of having their banking data stolen again and again.
Their local Linux User Groups could probably assist by distributing Ubuntu CDs at media cost ($1).
I speak as a student from India, and my analysis of the piracy situation tells me that it gives a huge boost to microsoft's monopoly. 99% of my classmates use pirated version of windows, the situation is the same everywhere in India, all students use pirated software. In an informal survey i had conducted, almost 8 in 10 people said they would shift to linux if they were not able to obtain windows absolutely free. And these very students are going to use "genuine" windows in their work environments, someday becoming PHBs and pushing for Windows Vista Ultimate Chair Throwing Edition. (Just my 2*10^-2 $ )
For instance the wide spread lack of fresh water seems like a more relevant problem.
(From the summary:)
The economics of software outside the west are very different to what most people are used to.
So... the north, east, and south are quite small and unpopulated in comparison?
I bet the average user's logic for selecting between Linux and Windows probably in a following way. :-(
1) user sees 2 discs costing 2 $
2) User knows that the normal price for Linux is supposed to be something about 0-2$, as it is this free software
3) User knows that the normal price for Windows is supposed to be something about 100-1000$ (I really do not know the real prices)
--> So by buying an Legal Linux dvd for 2 $, the amount of money saved would be 0 $ and for the Windows it would be this 98-498 $.
--> So by selecting the more costly one he saves more
Linux will be only selected by the more advanced users who will get tired and fucked up to the endless restrictions and update cycles that the windows
requires once installed from the cd... So just like in the western countries, it will take some time before people found more pleasant alternativities.
This sign is actually in a local library.
Illeritate write for free help
I-800-USA-GOVT
IfUCnSpelGudUAreUnnek.
Great article. Hits it right on the nose. It's especially important to underscore the point that ordinary Joe is disadvantaged by using Open Office in a world where even rudimentary computer office skills are highly prized. It does little good from him to know how to use Open Office when Microsoft Office is by and far the norm. Sure, they're not that much different, but bridging the two is just one more obstacle for a beginner or one who doesn't have frequent opportunity to build skills. Perhaps Open Office could work on a skin that would make bridging the gap less of an issue? As for distribution, I like the Freedom Toaster concept (freedomtoaster.org). It gets at the reality of poor internet connectivity. However, it does require some organizational/governmental support to grow the interest and demand . Not only is pirated MS software preinstalled with "extras". It's also prone to grow it's "extras" bundle by not being able to stay patched and updated. Ever tried to upgrade to XP SP2 or download virus software upgrades on dialup? Don't. You won't be able to afford the connection time or electricity if either of those can actually stay stable for that long (speaking from experience in an East African capital city).
The best thing to increase the penetration of OpenOffice is to drop the fscking ".org" from its name!
Spelling it out and explaining it is a constant embarrassment (and yes, they ask every time). Let it have a proper name and I'll instantly move back to endorsing it and not StarOffice. As it is, it's just too embarrassing to have to explain every time that no it's not a website, it's a professional office suite rivaling and compatible with MS Office. Last time, the person asked whether it's actually that online thing from Google. I gave up and sold StarOffice (I'm retailing that too) and my support package. (I'd rather hand out OpenOffice and mark up my support, but it's just too vexing. And I'd be willing to donate to OpenOffice if I "retailed" it, but I *hate* that people-confusing, convention-breaking &"&%"#& ".org" thing they have for no reason whatsoever. The OpenOffice website is perfectly easily locatable from the About menu item and the splash screens, thank you.)
Shakespeare asked "what's in a name?"; clearly he understood diddly squat about marketing.
Because everybody's using Windows around here (Moldova). And when things will become more "civilized" and software will actually be paid for, people will have nowhere to go and will buy their products. So in the long term, Microsoft would have nothing to win if they fight piracy here. That's why they don't.
I use Linux because it's a better environment for programming. They use Windows for free, because they play games (for free). The "because it's free" argument won't convince anyone to try Linux around here. It costs more to download a distro via dial-up, then to buy Windows for $2.
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"I can go down the block to my local market and find almost any software program, .. for somewhere around $2 per disc .. let alone spending hundreds of dollars on software, or even $4 on pirated software"
Which is it, $2 per disc or $4 per disc ?
"Before you can get consumers to use licensed software, it has to be affordable"
What's not affordable about OpenOffice at $2 per disc ?
"For one thing, knowing OpenOffice doesn't give one much of a leg up in the job market, where knowing Microsoft Office certainly does, and computer skills are one of the few things that show promise at getting people out of poverty around here."
I can't for the life of me figure out how basic proficiency in OpenOffice doesn't equate to the same in Microsoft Office. OpenOffice provides WYSIWYG word processing same as msOffice and the menu icons are virtually the same. I have personally seen msOffice users using OpenOffice, and they don't know the difference.
And presumably since these local employers are using msOffice at $2 per disc thay can't be offering much in the way of salary.
"The other thing is a distribution problem. OpenOffice at the local market costs the same as Microsoft Office"
Since they can buy a fully licensed OpenOffice at the local market at $2.00 a go, how is it in any way not affordable. Also it must be the only local market on the planet that offers OpenOffice on CD. Can we see some pictures please.
davecb5620@gmail.com
and quite frankly pathetic to say that the reason MSO succeeds where OO hasn't is merely down to MS's marketing budget.
CTOs know what OO is. If an enterprise CTO deployed OO and saved their company millions, they'd get a big gold star. The reason OO isn't deployed so widely is because if it were, stuff would 'stop working' and cost the company more.
Now you could argue (rightly) that there's nothing wrong with OO, but if you deploy it in an MS ecosystem (both your own systems and the stuff that'll come in from outside), stuff will stop working. OO's pitch is pretty much "We'll get 95% of your Office documents opened and working" - problem is that last 5% will cost more than you'll save by not coughing up for the MS license. It's not right, it's not fair, but it's a fact - and something the OO plugging CTO will be made to answer for.
Just to come back to your point on marketing, there are many countries that MS don't even bother with now, due to the levels of piracy. Surely if OO were the better product, then it would flourish without the evil MS marketing dollar - but they just don't...
If I pirate MSO, I know I'll have less problems than I do legitimately downloading OO. OO currently offers 95% of MSO for free - if you consider MSO to be 'free' then why on earth would you take that over something that offers 100% of MSO for free?
"I stay in India and out here a Microsoft employee would be looked up to, a Google employee would be recognized and a RedHat employee would be given condescending looks"
How does one go about spotting RedHat employees in the street. What are the significent telltale markings ?
"was Re:How Microsoft Kills Competitors (Score:5, Interesting)
davecb5620@gmail.com
The Pirated Software Problem in the 3rd World
No, it is not a problem there at all. Pirated software is problem only in 1st World.
There you are, staring at me again.
Essentially, pirating commercial software is a display of resistance against the concept and economics of intellectual property. The concept of "owning" ideas or things that can be "stolen" without taking property away from the "owner" is simply not inherent to humanity (compare that to stealing a car, where the person stolen from actually loses the car).
However, the resistance that piracy implies isn't sufficient. Free software (and other free knowledge) is a revolutionary concept that turns the base structure of the new information economy upside down. It allows everybody to share knowledge and self determine what they can and will do (as compared to accepting the limits imposed by "owned" knowledge...like accepting that powerpoint is the way a presentation should be made). This is much more important for the poor, especially in the third world, who do not have the capital to access source code and thus see how software (and the world) work.
When using closed source software, one is essentially giving up the possibility of determining how you communicate and think in relation to machines -- and other humans. Having spent the last several years in the third world studying this specific issue (in Ecuador), it is clear that the availability of commercial software for a dollar or two is very dangerous for those countries. Any country that doesn't have a policy of supporting Free software is essentially allowing Microsoft, etc. to determine how it thinks and produces. Big software companies have no problem with this, they know that they wouldn't be selling large quantities of their software in poor countries anyway. While they may care about the big markets (China), I think most of their complaints about software piracy in the third world aren't because they care about those areas, but because they want to make sure that Americans know that piracy is an evil thing that foreigners do.
Unfortunately, most third world governments are so pathetically corrupt/incompetent that they don't take the freedom of Free software seriously. Some recommendations would be making all government sponsored software open sourced, requiring all government documents to use open standards, making public universities use free software, etc. There are several governments working on this, but they are few and far between. It is too bad, because the third world can benefit even more from Free software than the first world can.
I kinda understand your frustration, but why not call it by the 'informal' name,i.e just "OpenOffice", when introducting it to your customers?
If you worry about technical accuracy, you can always introduce the full name later (or wait till they see it in the about box anyway).
First office suite I pirated was MSO. When I got a job and they used licensed MSO, I knew how to use it. /. "RIAA prosecutes single mother", "MPAA demands arrest of 12 year old" etc etc. MS never gets their hands dirty with this kind of stuff - all MS piracy busts are against guys selling thousands of fake licenses into enterprise (despite these large scale operations supplying far less instances than the millions of individual copies installed on home PCs).
My mum wants a word processor, I'd give her a pirate MSO as I know how to use it - and if she has any problems, I can help. If I can't help, she can buy a book to help (much easier for MSO than OO).
You've really got to applaud MS, they've simultaneously managed to make MSO ubiquitous whatever the depth of your pocket, whilst managing to derive a stonking great income from legit software.
Look at the other 'pirate' stories that come through
To emphasise the level MS wants to go after for piracy, look at what they've done with WGA. Your installation fails WGA, you nark out your supplier, and you get a free legit copy. MS doesn't prosecute people using pirate software, they just gun for those selling it.
At least here in South America, when you buy a pc, it comes loaded with software, from windows and office to games, photoshop, autocad, etc (you name it they install it, of course they don't know anything about OSS).
People barely can decide by themselves, mostly because if it's their first pc, they don't know anything about software so just try to get everything they could possibly need from start. If it's not their first pc, then all they know about software is what came with the first one, and ask for the same. Some people not even want the newer versions of the software they use, just the same they've been using so far.
The same applies for companies, here people don't choose the software. It just happens to be in the computer and they use it.
Why would someone want to pirate a software problem? :P
The great majority of the planet is no where near the US economy, or even better countries like Japan, South Korea, or Germany.
How is a business that pays its workers $2.00 US a day for 12 hours work supposed to buy Microsoft Vista in a $2000 computer?
A 486 with xubuntu Linux running
enough power to keep records and communicate with the world by dial-up modem,
and that business might be the most wired business in town!
Not everybody can run out and buy a $500 iPhone with a $100 month phone plan (even if they could get cell coverage in their area...)
The economics of software outside the west are very different to what most people are used to
Actually it's not clear to me that most people live in the West. Nor is it clear to me that one can characterise the "rest of the world" so simply. There are whole Linux distributions aimed at (and developed in) India and China. And for that matter there are places in the West where pirated software is common. There have even been slashdot stories about it as I recall, e.g. in parts Europe.
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In Russia, they are starting to throw pirates (even teachers) into Siberian prison camps. If they started doing something like that in Argentina, do you think everyone would buy Windows, or switch to Linux? Or would most people just take the risk?
I'm curious to know what the opinions on this matter are from Slashdotters who happen to live in these developing countries where piracy is rampant. Anyone from such a country, please respond.
The problem isn't that of what you call "3rd World". Why would they have a problem? They are not producing that technology. Hell, their resources are robbed of them so fast, they don't have money to produce much of anything.
Most 3rd world citizens are happy if they make $30/week.
Do you really expect them to shell $296 for Vista and $345 for Office?
Get real.
And I'm talking from experience here.
10 years ago Buenos Aires was in the same situation as described in TFA, and the pirated software sold in stores was mostly clean. I know there was no market for zombie machines, but there were lots of (very good) viruses around. Selling infected software would hurt sales REALLY BAD. Especially since it would only take a seasoned pirate, hacker or technician to notice (and the latest antivirus was also available from most local pirates).
Most pirated software salesmen are interested in selling software, so they won't do anything to threaten their own income. The only thing some pirate shops would do is to add some intro/advertisement (and they were treated like scum for that). Most viruses came from diskettes from unknown sources.
GPG 0x1B479C78
As a citizen of such a country I'd like to add a few things: 1. As stated above why should someone pay a month's wage (around here ~150$ on something he can get for 2$? 2. Most computer hardware purchases in the area are of second hand machines of the P2-P3 category. Now I know that you cannot compare the speed of Openoffice with that of MS Office on such hardware. For most people around here it's about owning a computer, any computer, that can perform the basic tasks required. We're talking about hardware that costs 60$!!! Compare that to a windows license+office license and you get that the hardware is only 1/5-th of the cost of a machine. If purchased it legally that is.
I think, therefore you are.
True. For example, here in Argentina, Windows and Office cost that (plus 21% tax). But, a movie ticket cost $ 5 (5 pesos, which is about USD 1,60). A Big Mac too, $5 or something (you can't really expect people to pay what a Big Mac costs in the US, because nobody, and I mean nobody will ever buy that).
That means, movie studios and McDonald's figured that they can adjust the price to what people can pay, and still make profit. Why can't Microsoft do the same thing? They want to charge you the same price as in the US or Europe, where people make 10 times more money. That's just stupid. So what do they do? They make a "Starter Edition", the most discriminative piece of software I've ever seen in my whole life: you are poor? then YOU DON'T DESERVE to have a computer with more than 512MB ram and run more than 3 apps at a time.
Why can't Microsoft make a local version, something like "Windows Vista latin" or something. The same windows vista you get in the US, only that it's in Spanish (windows comes in spanish, of course), and it costs something like what people can afford down here. No, people from other parts of the world won't buy it (because it's in Spanish), and as most south american countries are more or less the same (we are all "poor"), the price could be the same for this whole market. Norton did that, and you could get a year subscription of Norton antivirus for $15 or so here in Argentina. Don't know if they still do that, but I'm glad that they want to fight piracy with something that people can afford.
Get real, is either "make less money" than "make no money". I can assure you, NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND will spend their month (or 3 month in some cases) salary just to give Bill (the richest man alive) a drop in his ocean of money.
Nonono... that's how you recognize the leader of the local group of enemy invaders and their MIBs.
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And that's why Microsoft Vista is so paranoid, and insists on talking to the mothership in Redmond regularly. Microsoft is gradually going to shut this down. Once the hardware changes to require Vista, and the monitors change to require HDCP, they just have to wait for the old hardware to die off.
The few times you encounter a virus-ridden pirate CD, it's surely because it was burned on a machine that was already infected and the virus managed to slip by.
(Just exactly the same as it happened for virus infected Ipods and similar players, which were infected because the XP machine on which they were tested as part of the development process was infected and droped virus on each tested ipod)
But that would happen nonetheless very seldom, because most of the software that is sold in this way is already downloaded in ISO form from the torrents and is directly burnt this way, and very few virus are able to injects themselves inside an ISO (althrough, a hacker could instruct remotely a trojanised PC to do so, and he would have the very obvious motivation you stated above). Very seldom are several different software unpacked, and all the SETUP.EXE from several different apps burnt together on a CD/DVD.
Most of the pirate CD you may find on those markets are produced by people genuinely interested in the fast money then can make with the small margins they have on the media they sell you.
(The complexity of managing and selling a botnet is beyond the interest in earning quickly 2$ for selling you a CD that costed them 0.02$ to burn)
The "All pirated spftware contain virus" is BSA propaganda. If you spend your whole time on "astalavista.box.sk", you may end up on some exploited web-page or downloading some trojan. But most of the pirated softwares you find in torrents are clean.
(My advice : switch to open source. You drop the whole stuff al together and get software that are both clean AND legal)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
If you need to do any real work with Microsoft file formats, OpenOffice won't work for you, and Microsoft intends it to stay that way. You can get by with simple files that don't need to be edited in both programs, but it isn't a long term solution. If you want to use OpenOffice, you need to commit to not using Microsoft formats.
Oh, and OpenOffice does more than just print to pdf, it exports, which retains meta information (like the table of contents).
This discussion has absolutely nothing to do with that.
While most of the comments about this original article are concerned with the possible presence of viruses and trojans in copied disks, no one seems to be asking the real question.
Why would there be viruses and trojans in copied 3rd world CDs? The purpose of this renegade code is to collect passwords and account information and send it to a criminal organization that will use it to defraud the software user without their knowledge. But if someone is paying $2 for a copy of MS Office, then they don't have anything that these criminal organizations would consider worth stealing. It's only the big companies and wealthly (relative to the third world) individuals that actually do pay $500 for a piece of software that attracts the interest of the virus and trojan writers.
The only people who would be interested in destroying the OS and data of the $2 CD buyers would be the BSA companies themselves. They would do this to discourage people from buying $2 copies of their $500 programs. If they could do this without affecting the actual program buyers, they wouldn't hesitate to do so.
The unspoken problem here is not that someone is selling $2 copies of $500 programs, it is that the process of software development is so backward and difficult that it requires developers to charge $500 for a non-trival application. Software companies have to charge $500 and sell thousands of copies at that price in order to cover development costs. If software development, like hardware, fell in price/performance ratio cost by 50% every few years, then there wouldn't be this issue at all.
The really good thing about having people in the 3rd world (don't like that term? K my A) making $2 copies of corporate $500 a seat programs is that it puts a ceiling on the number of copies of the program that can be sold at the high price. This forces (or will someday eventually) the software companies to invest in higher quality software development tools and techniques in order to get a greater productivity from their expensive developers. Otherwise we would be spending the rest of eternity developing code in such brain-dead 1970s nightmares like C++.
In the Philippines piracy is rampant. You can buy all sorts of software in the basements of malls for less than $2 a disk. And I know the Philippines isn't exactly 3rd world, but some parts are pretty close. And piracy has affected those area's in a good way. For example, in Davao, people had started using pirated software and it wouldn't be long till it ended up like the capital city, Manila, where piracy is so rampant it's impossible to stop. So the police started ending piracy early in Davao, and because of that, people were unable to buy a genuine version of windows (much less a mac), so some of them started using Linux!
Tell that to Maher Arar.
Make sure you know what you're talking about. You don't need to open up the installer to splice in a trojan. You just need to infect any executable that will be run.
Did you actually read the article? Yes? Then notice how he says it is actually more expensive for him to download a program then to buy it. That is pure download. With the "modern" distribution method of bittorrent he is probably going to have to do some uploading. Wich is going to cost him even more.
So he is NOT going to get proper releases by proper groups who do it just for the thrill of it. HIS pirated software comes from pure and simple profit motivated criminals.
It is the difference between free software (as in the GPL and similar) and those "free" pieces of software that your family installs and you then spend the weekend trying to clear out. Do you know the hardest bit of getting people to use proper software like Firefox? How the fuck do I explain that this massive program is one hundred percent free while I have been warning them for years to stay away from all those "free" software offers. It is like telling kids not to accept candy from strangers and then to tell them to accept candy from Santa, a fat guy in disguise who creeps into the house in the middle of the night.
I would have expected someone on slashdot to know the difference between pirated software for free download, and piracted software pressed onto CD/DVD and sold on the street. The first only ISP's make money on (well and the computer hardware industry and the people laying the cables and the people who sell those people sandwiches. Lots of people actually but not the software industry and that is what counts since they pay the big bribes, eh donations) were was I? Oh yeah, that kind of piracy is profit free.
But the pirated CD makers are doing it for money and just as MS sells space on its CD's for just a few more cents (as do many so called legit companies) so will pirate software distributors. Do you want to sell a CD for 4 dollars OR 4 dollars plus a bit for including some spyware/trojan?
Ask Dell, they answered that question with a resounding yes wich is why their computers are spyware infested pieces of crap. It is why ANY browser you care to try on windows comes with paid for links. Yes, even firefox.
So again, just because you who can afford software can download clean pirated software does not mean someone who can only afford pirated software has access to clean versions.
Or put another way, stop being american, other parts of the world are different.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You know stories like this always make me kinda chuckle. The idea that people living in the third world have a "problem" with pirated software.
First world problem: My SUV costs $57 to fill instead of $51.Third world problem: My water is dirty and the market has no meat left.
First world problem: My son's team lost at their football championship.Third world problem: My son's school collapsed and 4 of his classmates died.
First world problem: My baby formula might contain GMO products.Third world problem: My baby is dying because of malnutrition and lack of medication.
First world problem: This war is expensive.Third world problem: My stepfather died in the hospital that was just bombed.
I could go on, but there's no point. All of this to say that when you don't have any real problems, you make them up.
The idea that intellectual "property" is on the same radar as food, drinking water, medicine, or hell even physical property in the third world is ludicrous.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
i remember this place in china where u can get anything for 5 yuan per disk. there's this set, windows all in one, for like 20 yuan which is less than 2 bucks. take that microsoft!
I've been reading this thread, and the 1st world view of the 3rd world is hilarious. 1st. of all. Pirated Software doesn't necessarily contain spyware or whatever. 2nd. 3rd world countries have an interest in allowing pirated software, it allows for cheap/er computers, therefore encouraging IT literacy, which is quite essential nowadays to have a competitive industry. 3rd. the cost of original software is dispproportionate compared to profit margins in the 3rd world, that the (for example ) Argentine Peso is worth one third of a US dollar, doesn't imply that Argentine people make three times as much in Pesos. The Price of most Microsoft software, is exactly the same than in the US, in dollars. 4th. Microsoft has an interest in allowing pirated software, on one hand, creating a monopoly of M$ software, because who will use open source software, when m$ software is free. Plus the possibility of clamping down on piracy in the near future.
I lived in singapore for half a year or so, and even though it's about as "western" of an asian country there is in that part of the world, pirated software/movies was the norm for most people.. Specifically, In Singapore pirated software is illegal and it is enforced, but gangs from Malaysia open up small shops in the housing districts with no signs, and sell any program, game, or movie you want for a couple bucks.. every few months they'll get busted, and then the'll open up shop again 3 dopors down in a week's time.
That new anti-piracy trailer you see in theater's and in DVDs these days was made for Hong Kong & Singapore a few years ago (and is shown before every film in theatres), mainly because they have an educated consumer culture, but no (or poor) local representation of the copyright holders. In Singapore there was one exception: Microsoft XBox (not MS software, just Xbox). I met a lot of gamers there, and xbox was the console of choice, and nearly everybody purchased legit games, simply because they were happy that MS had a presence, even though pirated games were sold on every corner...everybody had a PS2 and I don't recall ever seeing a legit game for it.
The thing that not everybody understands is that movies/software/games/whathaveyou are often never officially available, pirating is the ONLY option. not to mention that for movies, VCD's are still more popular than DVD's in most of Asia. The money just isn't there to bother even selling in some countries, but yet they complain about piracy all day long and aren't willing to throw money at the problem because there isn't any money to be made by enforcing it.
Small economic cars about freedom too, not costs. The freedom to use your hard earned money on other more important things. The freedom to not be a slave to the petrol tank. The freedom of your entire nation not to be slaves to the oil producing countries. Hell, even Bush gets this.
Want to count the number of SUV's on the road? and if you think the US is bad check europe, in a place like holland were american style SUV's are impractical (too big to fit), not needed because the journey time is shorter and fuel costs are even higher you just cannot get people to not buy them.
PEOPLE, do NOT care.
In general most people just ain't any good about doing what is best for them. I know, I am too fat. Not exactly american style hippo man but still, a bit too close to love handles. I hate it and I do absolutly nothing about it. I know I should, I am getting too old to be able to eat anything I want. My year of birth keeps popping up more and more at the beginning of a 8 letter sequence and 1 dash. you know 1971-2007. Didn't used to be the case, used to be only old people die, now young people like me are dropping of left right and center, it does something when you hear someone has died of a heartattack and they were several years younger then you.
And still I do not diet.
People drive huge suv's when the fuel price is exploding, the greenhouse effect is running amok and eat lard while they waddle down the driveway and you expect them to worry about the license of the code to their software?
Ah, to be young again. So naive. So stupid. Lets, see, to be that naive, you must be what. a 3 day old fluffy kitten?
You are correct offcourse, just that nobody cares. Give in to your apathy and your journey to adulthood will be complete, from wich it is just a short trip to the grave.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
OpenOffice.org has the advantage of providing much more support for scripts that aren't supported by MS-Office, because they're used in country which aren't economically interesting. /.)
(As already reported several times on
MS-Office has the advantage of brand recognition. Surely the percentage of people to whom "Windows", "Office" or "Word" means something is lower in those countries, but still significant.
So they're not exactly even.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
these people to stop using pirated software ? If they can't afford it there is no point in expecting money from them. Now, imagine this. 3-rd world kid uses Microsoft Office and C# and whatever, grows up and gets a job in a decent company. That company ( witch CAN afford the software) will buy that software because that's all their employees can use. Happened in romania a few years back.
In Mexico City, on sundays, when the bricks and mortar shops are closed, the open air street market has every sort of software and game for a kind of universal asking price of $5. Be it Word or Photoshop Gold Plated edition, $5. I saw photocopied manuals with it-and every movie from every region, also $5. I think the pr0n was cheaper.
"That's the real issue here, and one that's not easily solved; the first copy of any major software application costs an incredible amount of money to produce. You either have to find people willing to work for free (and supply most of their own tools, etc), or work out a way to recoup the initial investment."
Hmmm. If memory serves? That's the model mass production is based upon. It costs a thousand to create, and the cost is distributed across a thousand people. The distribution cost is variable (from low to high), but it doesn't really change the picture that much since it is likewise distributed across the many. The thing with piracy however is that it upsets the "distributed across many" by shrinking the pool that costs are recouped from, and makes the price that the honest have to pay higher to compensate.
Now as this all applies to open source. Open source hides it's costs. Instead of an explicit "cost of creation" bill , the costs are paid by the companies that pay the salaries of the programmers. This is true regardless of this being an explicit "we're paying you to write OSS", or an implicit "we're paying you to fix cars" and you then use your salary to support yourself in the pursuit of writing OSS. There's also the distribution costs (servers aren't free, same with bandwith).
Take away the "cost of creation" support and both fail, just via different means.
The former I've already mentioned how, the latter could be not following the GPL. Not contributing back. Making the OSS environment a hostile one to work in. The unemployment rate for programmers going up.
"It's the people who buy the latest best copy of Norton anti-virus...pirate...and never get a virus definitions update because they can't register their program. They think they are safe and protected, because they are running an antivirus program.
It's the people running pirate Windows and IE and Office with no updates or patches, because even if they can register them (and typically they can't), they don't have the bandwidth to download security updates."
Not that I agree with piracy, but I find it amusing that you all can pirate the originals, but can't pirate updates. Maybe "software as a service" does have a future?
"This is exactly how Microsoft kills off the competition. "
Uh, huh. So when someone here says that "piracy doesn't hurt anyone". Can I point them to your post?
A large number of countries never signed the Paris Convention on copyrights and patents. So why should the citizens of these countries pay any royalty...By international law they do not have to. jim
I've actually seen it done.
There are a lot of pirate groups that try to polish their release : at least put in some cheats or trainer, in case of games, up to completly re-write the installer for some edition of pirate XP.
Never the less, viruses on the pirated CD tend to be rare (never saw any on the few I've encountered in eastern europe a few years ago).
I think the problems that TFA's author is complaining about, mainly that some developing countries are filled with zombie botnets, is not as much due to the few rare virus-containing pirate CD, as it is from :
- Microsoft trying to detect and lock out pirate versions from updates. (And thus some holes - that aren't considered as absolutely critical and auto-downloaded in background - aren't patched)
- The technical skill to control virus infection isn't as common as in countries where computers are widespread.
- When your small 32 kbits ISDN / Analog line costs a significant part of your salary, you only get on-line for very short periods of time, just enough to send your mails (and the one with advertisement for p3n1s enhancements that the trojan on your computer wrote). *You* can't afford to stay hours online to download megabytes of patches (and your machine is vulnerable), whereas, because of the distributed nature of a botnet, it's perfectly OK for the spam busyness, if only 1 or 2 mails are sent per day. When you multiply by the size of the zombie-net, the total number of mails sent in a day is enough.
And given the poor security on Windows XP, this lack of hole patching is enough to turn a huge percentage of the computer population into zombies spitting each one it's three daily mails about "ch3ap f4rm4cy m3dZZ !!!".
As TFA's autor said, only ISP are in position to help.
By filtering computers' access to the net, they can help stop zombies sending spam.
And, although it's hard to spot on Zombie from the computer it-self (it only sends a few mails per day), it's possible to spot a part of bot-net from the ISP level (if a group of 1'000 clients suddenly all send almost the same single mail, maybe they're part of a bot net. Or replying to some successful stupid chain mail).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
You can imagine it. I can't. I live in Hong Kong, I've bought a lot of bootleg CDs here and in Thailand. Never, ever have any been infected with viruses.
It makes no economic sense. The vendors make a couple of dollars per disc. They'd make at best a few cents per spambot. (And spambots in Cambodia? Give me a break. They don't have the connectivity.) But once the word got round that thay were selling infected softweare, they'd lose all their sales. These are people selling from market stalls; they stick around in the same place for months usually. If they sell bad products, they lose. Customers demand refunds. I have a few times when a disc was bad; a lot less hassle from these guys than legit dealers..
Every time you read an article quoting the BSA and such groups about software piracy they make this claim. It's just FUD. Note this writer never said he found viruses on his software, just that he was afraid of it. That's the "F" in FUD.
The software vendors in Cambodia are selling MS Office for the same price as OpenOffice, and they actually bother to put both of them out. That should suggest that MS Office isn't wildly more popular. And it's probably true, because, if you want OpenOffice, you go out and pay $2 for it, but if you want MS Office, you go out, pay $2 for it, and learn English so you can read the text in the UI. Sure, learning English is a good way to get ahead, too, but if you just want a [Khmer text removed by slashdot] to get some work done, MS Office isn't going to help.
The irony of pirates having ethics is nothing short of humongus. I sure hope nothing comes along and makes them look bad.
"The economics of software outside the west are very different to what most people are used to."
Care to parse that one again? Clue: I'm questioning your use of the words "most people".
Disclaimer: My home is right at the eastern edge of the world. Just before you fall off.
Just to add to all the above posts refuting the claim that pirated CDs are "infected" - I live in Russia, and I've bought plenty of those here - and not a single time there was a virus, trojan, or anything of a kind on such a CD.
"People are planning the transition, and they are content to do it in small, achievable steps. But they are moving to FOSS."
All well and good, but two things. That puts more presure on FOSS to get it's act together. Two as I mentioned elsewere I'm not certain these "FOSS loving" countries will abide by the terms of FOSS (specifically the GPL). They already have a long history of not abiding by agreements. Why do people think the GPL will be an exception?
It's also worth noting that pirate group also provide decent support for their releases.
For example, in the PC Game ISO scene, it's now not uncommon to see pirates *fix* retail software.
One common example is legacy windows support, you can find some patches for windows 98 and cracks cleaned of theirs "windows xp sp 2 only" systems calls.
Honestly the whole "malware in pirate software" is BSA propaganda.
This is a really significant part of the debate that everyone else has missed - many people in Cambodia could only use a computer in Khmer; only OpenOffice.org is in Khmer, not Microsoft Office. See the KhmerOS link above - they're doing a fantastic project
Interesting.
In customs law (IAACB - I *am* a customs broker) there is a concept called 'dumping', which is the illegally low pricing of goods. An example usually seen in the US is where Eastern European or Asian companies (which are heavily subsidised by the state) sell ball bearings into the US market at prices far below their cost of manufacture, or even the raw price of the steel included. In response to this, the US applies what are called anti-dumping duties against these specific manufacturers of 100%+ in order to bring the 'cost' of the goods in the US to a comparable level of the US market.
Of course, usually the laws are meant to protect the local market, but in this case creative application would put MS in a difficult spot.
So...if MS is selling Office for $2 in Thailand (and $200 in the USA), isn't that 'dumping'?
Either it IS, and MS should see a duty rate applied by Thailand of 10000%, or the 'actual cost of manufacture' in the US is really somewhere around $1.50 and they're gouging US consumers.
Which is it?
-Styopa
That's interesting. Maybe we can collect the Big Mac prices all over the world and use it as indication of the cost of life in different countries!
We could call it "The Big Burger Index" or something like that. Man, I have to patent this...
I don't have a sig.
Additionally, it is still pretty common to care about your friends, family, and community above those from far afield (such as those profiting from the sales of "originals"). The equality of all near and far is rarely held as an ideal; indeed pacifists (one group who conspicuously hold to this ideal) are often sneared at.
To have ethics isn't to be perfect, but simply to care more than merely self-interest (which isn't required here anyway). Indeed perfect ethics (as with my example of pascifism) are likely to be unsustainable, given the world in which we live.
Wikileaks, no DNS
FWIW, I know what the big mac index is. Didn't think some smart-ass would try to make a stupid joke about my comment. Well, my bad. This is slashdot after all.
In an area where you have limited or expensive metered internet,
internet distribution wont work to its full benefit. However local
distribution or caches would solve that, as most binary data could
be downloaded once.
However the view that knowing how to use Open Office has no leverage
in the job market is short sighted. Knowing how to interact with software,
even of a certain type is more valuable than knowing how to do canned
tasks in one application.
If you're interested in facts I'll tell you what they are and I'll give you sources - Chomsky on The Big Idea
Romani Ite Domum x100
Wikileaks, no DNS
Turning up to an office and being able to use the software running on their machines is more likely to get you a job than having an interesting side line in software programs, as far as the barely technologically literate manager of that office is concerned.
I'm not talking about computer enthusiasts, I am referring to the larger number of people who have a few hours limited access to computers before they enter the job market as teenagers. If you give a kid in Cambodia the opportunity to have a few hours access and training on a computer, I'd imagine the chances are they'd ask to be trained in whatever the offices down the road use, so they can make themselves more employable.
If I was teaching kids in a place like this I'd use whatever program would be most likely to make them employable. Alas that's probably MS Office suite. Maybe the advanced kids would get a lesson showing them other similar programs...
Follow the link ;o)
Wikileaks, no DNS
Wow! that's profoundly insightful. And 4 out of 10 moderators agree, so it must be true. So glad you are able to contribute so much to the dicussion. Keep up the good work. Feel free to join the the others on the list. You certainly will fit in. You poor pitiful soul. Such a lack of self control. It's ok, man. I know you can't help it. Must be all that lead you were exposed to. Stay out of the mines, son. It'll make you go crazy. As always, feel free to speak freely where ever you are. I may disparage your silliness, but I would never, ever try to stop you from saying whatever you wish, at any time. You have my personal guarantee :-) Oh, and happy Valentine's Day. Will you be mine? TCO isn't talking to me, lately. I do miss him so. *sigh*
PS. Could you spell check this post for me? My eyes aren't so good, and I'm not sure if "where ever" is one or two words.
What?