FREEWARE, PIRACY, LICENSING or JUNK?
cpedley
This is software which is designated when you downloaded it as FREE!
NOT "FREE DOWNLOAD" which only means you don't pay to download it, but
you may pay to USE IT.
PIRACY:
A polite term for STEALING! Anyone helping out in a church SHOULD NOT
BE GUILTY OF PIRACY. However sometimes people are ignorant of what
piracy is.
When you purchase a program, you are purchasing a license to install it
on ONE COMPUTER. There are some exceptions. SOMETIMES a software
company WILL SPECIFY that you can install it on ONE DESKTOP AND ONE
LAPTOP [notebook] as long as they are NOT BOTH BEING USED AT ONE TIME.
But IT MUST BE SPECIFIED. Do not take that for granted! You do know
what the Bible says about thieves do you not?
1 Corinthians 6:10 "....NOR THIEVES nor the greedy nor drunkards nor
slanderers nor swindlers WILL INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD." NIV
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (in Context) 1 Corinthians 6 (Whole Chapter)
Now I am sure many of us have been guilty of this at one time or
another. Perhaps you wanted to try out a program and just kept using
it! But if we CONTINUE using a program that we did not pay for, we are
guilty of stealing. And the Bible is very clear about the fate of
THIEVES as you saw above.
How can God honour or trust a ministry which uses stealing to get their
software?
GOOD NEWS! There is GREAT FREEWARE available! Have you heard of
OPENOFFICE? It is a suite of programs compatible with Microsoft Office
consisting of a WORD PROCESSOR like Word, a SPREADSHEET like Excel, a
PRESENTATION program like PowerPoint [which can also import and export
PowerPoint files, a DRAWING program which can help you draw various
diagrams or create signs etc. and a DATABASE. I have used it and it
works well. [Perhaps as a reseller of Microsoft licenses, we shouldn't
have told you but at ChurchPower.com we believe in helping our clients.
It may require a little bit of learning to learn the various parts of
OpenOffice but it is very similar to MS Office. OpenOffice is available
through a link at http://www.cpedley.com/contents/en-ca/d9.html
LICENSES:
Or if you don't have confidence in Freeware as a charity you can
purchase charity licenses of Microsoft and other software at prices
much lower than retail prices. For example, you can get Microsoft
Office 2003 [being replaced in January by Office 2007] 1 copy and your
entry into the licensing program for less than $250! In fact the second
copy is cheaper, since you do not have to purchase an installation
cdrom, at less than $120 and so on for other copies.
JUNK?
Yes there is lots of freeware junk! However unfortunately there is junk
software that you have to pay for too and then find out later that it
was junk.
One piece of software which may be confusing to some is the free
version of AVG Antivirus FOR HOME and PERSONAL use. NOT FOR BUSINESS
USE. NOT FOR CHARITY USE. But personal only. Any church or minstry that
is using the limited free version of AVG for your ministry is using it
ILLEGALLY. We sell charity licenses for AVG if you would like to make
your situation legal.
IRFANVIEW: GRAPHICS CONVERTER AND EDITOR plus more
Another freeware product I have used for years which works great is
IRFANVIEW named after the author in case you wonder. It will among
other things, resize images and make some editing changes such as
brightening to your photos. It will display thumbnails or create a
slideshow or screensaver or convert a photo to desktop wallpaper. That
is ONLY a few of the things that it does that make it extremely useful
and all for free! Can be found at www.irfanview.com .
PICASA - A fantastic photo collector, organizer, editor,
slideshow-maker, uploader to a web album, maker of gift cd slideshows
[only work on a computer not for TV].
Picasa and several other programs are available through links at
http://www.cpedley.com/contents/en-ca/d7.html?lmd=0.6524655241922327
Good luck with your freeware! And for more information about charity
licensing, contact us at churc...@gmail.com .
-Charles Pedley
Hope you learned something new! Feel free to discuss or ask questions
about the above.