Who else buys software ?

[Luc Trudeau]

Piracy being such a big factor in software/games sells I was wondering what are people on this forums opinion about this subject?

In my case, I agree with Tor (I think It was that said it) that to make a living as a software engineer you should pay for software. Even If I use Linux I still buy some software and try to contribute back to the community.

--
Luc Trudeau

Ecole de Technologie Superieure

[Todd Costella]

That was Joe who made the comment.

 

I’m in this camp too. I make my living writing code. People don’t buy the stuff I write, I don’t get to buy any toys. I buy quite a bit of shareware/comericial stuff for my Mac at home. At work, we’ve been known to contribute cash and time to some open source projects. This one is a no brainer from my perspective. I wish more people felt this way though, but then, they don’t make their livings creating IP. Just because it’s freely available doesn’t make it ‘free’.

 

Todd

 

 

---

[Christian Catchpole]

I've never been big into pirating nor purchasing software.. everything
I use was either on my mac when I got it or open source or free. And
I don't play games. Its not that I don't want to purchase, but my
income always seems to be pre-allocated before I get to spend it. I
have bought though things like VMWare Fusion as they can save you from
having to buy a machine for linux. I'll buy Leopard when I can afford
to. I'd buy IntellJ if I didn't have the OSS license (but no one tell
them that). Another must have would be Photoshop.

The dilemma with CD was always, how much gets back to the artist? If
you are PayPaling a project directly, this might make more sense.

[Michael Neale]

I do.

And I work full time on open source. I still buy software from time to
time, if it does what I want how I want.

More important then buying is making sure those responsible get
rewarded for the coolness they do.

On Feb 22, 7:16 am, Christian Catchpole <christ...@catchpole.net>
wrote:

[Michael Neale]

There is also the George Costanza angle (to paraphrase):

"There are 3 things in life I won't pay for: Parking, Sex, and
software".

"Why pay for something, when if I apply myself, I can get it for
free?".

[Stanfine]

I think in China,only a little person to buy software,and most of us use pirate,like system,office,and some prefiessional software.

one case in my computer,there is no software buy.all of them from internet and some other ways....

hehe....also in my company,no software buy with money.

 

2008/2/22, Michael Neale <michae...@gmail.com>:

[Peter Becker]

In the last years I rarely felt the need to buy any software at all since all I need is available for free (officially that is, not pirated).

If you use Linux I think the best way to contribute back is not by buying software but by either contributing your time to some OSS project or donating some money -- if you buy software your money goes to a different type of person, potentially even someone who will use it to hurt the OSS community. The exception are distributions of OSS products, but I still think you will do better donating directly.

Having said that: I occasionally do buy games, although I buy those that are two or more years old, which makes not only the game cheap but also the hardware you need to run it :-) The annoying thing is that I then still have to crack the game so I don't have to swap discs all the time. People don't learn or they don't care about their users.

  Peter

[Reinier Zwitserloot]

<start shameless plug>

Perhaps a way out of the dilemma is to turn software on its head: You
give everything away including the sources, but you still earn money
by living off of voluntary donations. Right now this isn't popular,
but then again, most open source projects don't exactly make it
trivial for you to get money back to the developers. Which is where my
site comes in: https://tipit.to/ tries to make it easier to tip, and
makes sure your tips become visible. You can check out what your
friends have been tipping, which tipjars are popular of late,
etcetera.

Perhaps more relevant today, now that more and more software is being
released as open source. I really wonder, for example, given the claim
that IDEA has such a vocal and loyal userbase, how much money would be
donated by the crowd if new versions of IDEA hinged on getting enough
donations to pay the developers. I doubt projects as large as IDEA can
survive solely from donations right now, but perhaps someday!

</end plug>



On Feb 21, 10:16 pm, Christian Catchpole <christ...@catchpole.net>
wrote:

[David Linsin]

I completely agree with Joe on this. Software developers, stealing
Software are potentially stealing from themselves!

Usually everything I need is FOS software, I bought an IntelliJ
License though, cause I think it's worth it. I believe if you use
something everyday and it's good, you are willing to pay for it. I
would never ever pay for some office tool, but mainly because I don't
think I appreciate it enough, since I'm not using it every day.

I recently migrated to Mac and I guess I'll purchase a lot more
Software in the future, cause there are so many great products out
there, which are worth paying for.

regards, david

[Viktor Klang]

I contribute code to Open Source projects, I do this for free.
Does that mean that OSS isn't worth anything?

-V

--
_____________________________________
/                                                                 \
       /lift/ committer (www.liftweb.net)
     SGS member (Scala Group Sweden)
 SEJUG member (Swedish Java User Group)
\_____________________________________/

[Luc Trudeau]

Concerning the tipping and projects living off donations... do you think that this could kill a project or a least cripple it?

Let's just say I have this idea, it's not great but it's useful, so I write a piece of software to implement it. Now I have two options: I release open source or I release it closed source (shareware...).

• For the open source: It's released, people use it but only a small % give back money. I can't live of this project so I have to do something else to pay the bills and I can no longer wrong full time to improve my piece of code to turn it into something great.

• For shareware: It's released, people use it but only a medium % pay for it (others steal it). (In this case) I make enough money to keep improving it full time. So my piece of code can incrementally become great.

I know this is only a limited business case and does not reflect the whole Open source movement. There are different business models and all, I'm very aware but it seems to me that some people (Linus and RMS) for example have made great sacrifices for there projects to be Free.

I'm also fully aware that I can charge for GPL or other open source licenses if I distribute the source with the software. But other than Xandros I don't see that many companies doing it. And I feel it's not well perceived by some to pay for open source software.

I just want to point out that a business model based of open source and donations has primary income can be a limiting factor for a project. Open source does have a lot of advantages, but I think some people overlook its pitfalls.

[xelipe]

I pay for software but not because I write code. I pay for the
convenience, quality, and utility that the software provides me. I
don't pay because I feel forced to pay because I also write software
applications and I feel that if my software is pirated I won't get
paid. As a developer, it is not like we get royalties on our work, so
what do I care that 5% of my software is pirated, those that do pay
for it make up the perceived loss.

Like all of you, I know a lot of developers that do torrent software,
but the funny thing is that they really don't use it. They are just
software pack rats that download the latest software packages just to
have, use it once in a blue moon, and/or try to learn from it.

To good thing is that for whatever software you are interested their
is a free open source equivalent. The open source usually doesn't
much matter for end users, but the free does which is why you are
seeing 'express' versions of software packages like Visual Studio,
Oracle, etc that are free. A free, limited, and 'express' version is
enough to keep software pack rats happy.

On Feb 22, 6:51 am, "Luc Trudeau" <luc.trud...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Concerning the tipping and projects living off donations... do you think
> that this could kill a project or a least cripple it?
>
> Let's just say I have this idea, it's not great but it's useful, so I write
> a piece of software to implement it. Now I have two options: I release open
> source or I release it closed source (shareware...).
>

> - For the open source: It's released, people use it but only a small %

> give back money. I can't live of this project so I have to do something else
> to pay the bills and I can no longer wrong full time to improve my piece of
> code to turn it into something great.
>

> - For shareware: It's released, people use it but only a medium % pay

> for it (others steal it). (In this case) I make enough money to keep
> improving it full time. So my piece of code can incrementally become great.
>
> I know this is only a limited business case and does not reflect the whole
> Open source movement. There are different business models and all, I'm very
> aware but it seems to me that some people (Linus and RMS) for example have
> made great sacrifices for there projects to be Free.
>
> I'm also fully aware that I can charge for GPL or other open source licenses
> if I distribute the source with the software. But other than Xandros I don't
> see that many companies doing it. And I feel it's not well perceived by some
> to pay for open source software.
>
> I just want to point out that a business model based of open source and
> donations has primary income can be a limiting factor for a project. Open
> source does have a lot of advantages, but I think some people overlook its
> pitfalls.
>

> On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 3:47 AM, Viktor Klang <viktor.kl...@gmail.com>

> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I contribute code to Open Source projects, I do this for free.
> > Does that mean that OSS isn't worth anything?
>
> > -V
>

[David Linsin]

I didn't say that OSS isn't worth anything, just because I don't pay
for it. If you charged me for liftweb and I think it's worth it, I'd
be happy to pay for it.

[Viktor Klang]

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 8:23 PM, David Linsin <dli...@gmail.com> wrote:

I didn't say that OSS isn't worth anything, just because I don't pay
for it. If you charged me for liftweb and I think it's worth it, I'd
be happy to pay for it.

To me it's more rewarding to see people using stuff I am a part of.
Well, I huess it's just a matter of why we do what we do.

Cheers man,
-V
 

[Christian Catchpole]

Perhaps there are ways to make paying and receiving more interesting.
Buying boxed wares can be nice but sometimes its not so satisfying
paying online to receive your shiny new activation key. So value
adds, trinkets, etc might be nice to receive - but perhaps the
argument against them is they make the whole process more expensive.
I've also heard of wine ware or grape ware where you pay by sending
wine from your neck of the woods. Which sounds nice to be, but if a
product was too successful we might need to include some AA meetings
as well.

Its interesting the varying types of ideology.
- Pirate software hurts paid software
- Paid software hurts free software
- Free software hurts paid software

http://blog.catchpole.net/

On Feb 23, 7:10 am, "Viktor Klang" <viktor.kl...@gmail.com> wrote: