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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".
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.
In addition to this, of course, is the fact that legal users of MS software pay a premium high price that finances those that use pirate copies.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
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.
And we can think it in another angle...
The software in Combodia is not scarce, therefore it is almost like water or somthing very cheap there.
And now the only scarce thing for them is the job. I would never suprise people want to use MS office since the employers (may be they never heard about OpenOffice) would like to give offer to who know to use MS Office.
I'm not sure this reasoning makes sense; There is no material difference to Microsoft between one pirate user and one non-user. This isn't like a retail store that sells goods, where stores raise prices to cover a certain percentage of shoplifting. If someone pirates a Microsoft product, Microsoft is harmed in the "lost sale" but they still make money on their other sales. And in a region where basically ALL software is "pirate", Microsoft can essentially forecast zero sales and be done with it.
Anyway, the so-called "economics of open source" obviously won't apply in a region where none of the "economics" of software apply; as someone else mentioned it's really Microsoft's business model that falls apart here. Microsoft's supposed high prices aside, Microsoft isn't making any sales in regions with very high piracy; but one day they will convince the powers that be to crack down on it, and the users will suddenly realize the trap of Microsoft software; just look at what happened recently in Russia: Schools are switching away from all non-Free software because they can't afford the costs, and their governments are making them stop pirating software. Then it will be abundantly clear what the difference is between the two "economies" of software.
That's a whole bunch of different questions, and you're trying to get at something that really isn't there.
First, companies contract programming firms for custom work all the time. That's normal, and it's nothing special. It works exactly the same as internal programming, completely separate from the issue of Free vs. Proprietary software.
And every company with a web page doesn't want to write their own web server. If people need software it gets written.
Why is it not valid for them to work with their competitors to develop the application as Free Software? How is that different from a bunch of companies in the same office building getting together to have a parking lot built? Why should the people who want the software have to pay for its marketing costs?
Seriously, the leap to Free Software just isn't that big a deal, except that it gives people more options. Today, if you wanted a new feature in AutoCAD, you'd have to convince the developer to add it - with some developers that's impossible. If you want a new feature in Apache, you hire a programmer. In the AutoCAD case your competitors *always* get access to the feature. In the Apache case you have a choice - you can keep the feature to yourself if it's a big enough differentiator to warrant the maintenance cost of a fork.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.