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Pirating Software? Choose Microsoft!
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Mar 13, 2007 08:22 AM
from the where-do-you-want-to-keycrack-today dept.
from the where-do-you-want-to-keycrack-today dept.
An anonymous reader writes "ArsTechnica is running a story regarding comments by Microsoft Business Group President Jeff Raikes, who had a pithy comment on the subject of software piracy. His view is that, should software piracy occur, Microsoft's desire is that the pirated software should be theirs. Potentially, in the future, they could then convert the illegal users from the 'dark side' into legit users who obtain licenses. 'We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products. What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software.' Obviously Microsoft prefers the market to use their software even if it's pirated, rather than the alternative: the use of free software."
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Pirating Software? Choose Microsoft!
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The link (Score:5, Funny)
RIAA likes pirating too (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://dattaway.us/)
But most people don't like the settlements and license compliance audits that eventually catch up to them.
Death to pirates! (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/)
There really isn't an excuse to pirate anymore. In days gone by there just wasn't an option for people who couldn't afford software that cost far more than the hardware, especially in the developing world, starving students, etc. But now we can offer those people a safe, legal and effective alternative. Piracy is just unfair competition for us.
Re:Death to pirates! (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/)
Find a vendor who doesn't offer a student discount. Oh, you don't want the crippled student version? It does everything you need to pass the course, so don't use that watermark on every page to justify stealing the full edition.
> please don't give me Gimp when I ask for Photoshop.
If you can AFFORD Photoshop, great! Many people who edit photographs professionally believe the price is more than offset by their increased productivity. But if you can't afford Photoshop you have no right to steal it. Don't you even try justifying it either. Try Paint Shop Pro if you just can't learn The GIMP. PSP is well regarded and much less expensive.
Re:Death to pirates! (Score:5, Insightful)
If, on the other hand, you actually applied yourself to learning how to use a competing, Open Source application instead of their proprietary one (sure, the keyboard shortcuts and menu items may not be in the same place, and the procedures to accomplish certain tasks might be a little different -- are you really telling me you are so fucking thick that you can't learn the new ones?), you would be doing something to screw The System. You'd be breaking your dependency on The System.
Microsoft have driven competitors out of business by tolerating piracy. Thanks to closed protocols which make for poor interoperability, it's more attractive to use a Microsoft product than a competing product. And ease of piracy means that, for those who are prepared to do it, all software is effectively available gratis; price is not an issue. Thus, "everybody" pirates MS Office, and vendors of alternative office software lose out on sales. Now, if it were technically impossible (or just highly undesirable) to pirate MS Office, then maybe we'd see competing office suites.
Open Source Software throws another spanner in the works. Sun can't be driven out of business by Microsoft's tolerance of piracy, since their bottom line isn't affected by people not using OpenOffice.org; which is why Microsoft hate OSS so.
Re:Not gonna happen (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.networkboy.net/)
My wife is working on her masters thesis. OO.o is simply not compatible enough with MS office to be usable. A couple years ago I made a big push to go legit on all my apps. This meant dumping or paying for many tools I use regularly. I own Premiere 6 and PS6, but I was using newer versions. Dumped the newer versions. I was using many instances of windows not licensed, thus having a nice homogeneous network. Now I have a couple win2KPro machines and a couple WinXP Pro machines, my server was migrated to SOL18 (hey, it works for my needs perfectly), and my kids PCs are now running ubuntu and Wine for the reader rabbit software they so love.
When it came down to office I tried to migrate to OO.o because of the rather enormous cost of MS office Pro. No dice. Popwerpoint and its OO.o equiv were horribly incompatible. Word and it's equivalent had irreconcilable differences. I simply owned up to having to buy a copy and purchased the student edition, bummer it can't be in two places. I acquired an old site license for office 97 and am using that on all the windows machines other than the wife's notebook.
Until there is a good office suite with exchange compatibility there will be real trouble getting people off windows.
Until the linux community comes to an agreement and throws their support to a desktop linux distro and quits with the religious wars there will be trouble getting people off windows (linspire/ubunto maybe?).
Until the random hardware from the random computer store plugs and plays on the above intra-distro supported desktop there will be trouble getting people off windows.
Face it. While we can all have our boutique distro, if you want joe sixpack to use linux it the community must standardize on 1 (one) window manager, 1 (one) desktop, and 1 (one) functional application suite. Joe doesn't like choices, joe likes feeling safe with the default choice.
-nB
Re:is this how CS students make friends? :P (Score:5, Funny)
(http://dattaway.us/)
"911, what is your emergency?"
"My neighbor just pirated Microsoft Office."
"what?"
"My neighbor is pirating software!"
*click*
Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
So that explains WGA relaxation? (Score:5, Insightful)
I recall in the late 80s early 90s MS almost encouraged piracy, in an effort to kill off a slew of alternate OSes.
Validation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Validation? (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.spamgourmet.com/)
Microsoft doesn't really make any money off of Windows via off the shelf retail editions. They make money off of taxing OEMs by shipping their OS with new boxes regardless if you want or need a license, they get paid. They then make money off of site licenses where its common for the box to come with a license and then the site pays a separate license.
Hmm... fairly obvious I'd say (Score:3, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday February 15 2007, @09:19AM)
The more they tighten their grip, the more star^H^H^H^H people will slip through their fingers.
Re:Hmm... fairly obvious I'd say (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.getogg.org/)
If every person who pirates Microsoft software suddenly switched to Ubuntu and OpenOffice, suddenly the Microsoft lock-in (eg. doc files, wmv videos, wma audio files, etc) would not be quite as powerful as it is at the moment.
Re:Hmm... fairly obvious I'd say (Score:5, Informative)
(http://stylus-toolbox.sf.net/ | Last Journal: Tuesday May 15, @11:50AM)
"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." -- Bill Gates at University of Washington "town hall" meeting in 1998
So, no, despite what TFA says, it is not the case that Raikes' words "do not appear to echo the sentiments of his company..."
That's so "nice" of them... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.blcamp.com/)
The "logic" behind those comments vary little from the neighborhood crack dealer who gives the first "hit" for free.
Get you on the habit, get you hooked, then pay through the nose... so to speak.
Re:That's so "nice" of them... (Score:4, Interesting)
why (Score:4, Insightful)
Still not gonna do it. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Still not gonna do it. (Score:5, Funny)
When I tell people that I refuse to install a pirated version of MS office on their PC's they get peeved at me, and when I install a free alternative they give it 5 seconds, don't try to learn it, and get a pirated version of MS Office from someone else. Furthering Microsoft's hegemony.
Maybe if I tried to sell OO.o, with a pitch like.
"I don't even have a copy of that piece of junk(MS Office) I use a more robust office package for the business, I got it for a song at $1,100 per seat. I can let you bum a license off me for free."
But these are friends mostly, and I hate being dishonest particularly with people I choose to do favors for. If only I had the soul of a MS marketing director...
-manno
Alternatives? (Score:4, Insightful)
Drug dealer methods (Score:5, Interesting)
Hello? Adobe? (Score:3, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Tuesday February 11 2003, @05:28PM)
What I don't get is the validity of TFA's statement in parallel with Microsoft's scarily effective product activation.
Software `piracy' == theft? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://users.telenet.be/geertu/)
Ever heard e.g. a car dealer say: `We don't like people stealing cars, but if they do steal cars, we'd like them to steal ours'??
Or Joe Sixpack: `I don't like people stealing money, but if they do, please steal mine'?
Re:History (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://127.0.0.1/ | Last Journal: Saturday August 04, @07:40AM)
Re:Convoluted logic. (Score:3, Insightful)
On the contrary. After buying software that had demos that worked much better than the product, I have on many occasions tried a pirated copy before buying a legit copy.
Most of the times it was related to copy protection problems. I have a hard drive. The demo can be installed and runs fine. The actual product won't run without the disk in the drive. This is unaceptable and not stated in the product literature prior to purchase. Running more than one application at once is normal operation of a PC. Running more than one CD in the drive at once is not an option.
Programs which work get purchased. Programs which don't work or don't have a working crack, get rejected. I have simply bought too much software which simply can't be installed and run without the CD. I no longer buy off the shelf software without finding if it meets my needs first. Overpriced software is not pirated. It is simply rejected. For example, I use Open Office and the Gimp instead of Adobe Photoshop and MS Office.