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How Pirated Software Impacts Free Software
jmglov writes "Dave Gutteridge has an unusual take on why people are not interested in saving money by using a free-as-in-beer OS like Linux or *BSD: because Windows is free. At least, that is an all-too-common perception, thanks to bundling and piracy. Bundling is a well-known problem to the adoption of open source operating systems, so Dave takes a look at the piracy issue in depth. His title may offend you, but his well-written article will most likely get you thinking hard about the question, 'how much does Windows cost?'"
Pirates are hurting free software? I think we are cutting ninjas way too much slack here.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Maybe this is just tinfoil hat stuff, but could this all be part of Microsoft's strategy? Are they that smart? - no, they are really dumb. They are only making billions while they could be making MILLIONS!
You can't handle the truth.
I can relate to that. My girlfriend called me a couple of weeks ago and wanted me to install Windows on her daughter's computer. She had just gone out and bought the software. I said that I was 100% sure that she already had Windows on that computer. "No", she said, "Windows isn't on this computer and she needs it to type her resume." Turns out that the computer had Windows and what she had bought that day was Office. And this is a woman who is intelligent enough to date me!
I want to meet one of those drug dealers. They give me the first one free, then they come to me with money after that? Where do I sign up?!
Quite seriously for letting the things out - they could bite some kid or crap on my lawn. If they just let them loose and don't have them on a leash or behind a high enough fence they are a menace.
How should those people be handled? Is Piracy still piracy if it's the same version as what was there before?
Yes, it's absolutely piracy.
We need to be more tough on pirates and terrorists. In the music industry we use fines of $100,000 per 5MB of illegal pirated contraband. This should be increased to $500,000 per 5MB for Windows because it is such an important piece of software. Since Windows is about 1 GB in size that means we should be fining them about a gajillion dollars per theft. If you have multiple pirated copies then we must treat it as a commercial operation, and then clearly we are talking about *much* larger numbers.
Once the fine has been paid the pirates should then be sentenced to death by hanging. This is a good way to prevent re-offending.
I know that some of you think this is a little harsh but we must remember what the world was like when we were too gentle with pirates and terrorists. Do you want events like 9/11 to become a regular occurrence?
I'll probably be modded down for this...