[Linux-aus] Young Aussies say pirated software is OK

[Paul Wayper]

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Jon 'maddog' Hall wrote:
| I travel to a lot of developing nations, and this is also the word that
| I get:  "maddog, all of our software is free software, because we don't
| pay for it anyway."

(snip)

I agree with everything you say, Maddog, about the advantages of Free Software
other than cost.  Community, contribution, involvement, etc. are all great
things that FOSS has built.

I do make the point about cost, to make sure that it's understood that we are
(explicitly) competing on cost.  It's hard to find software any cheaper that's
as good. :-)  With FOSS, you can copy it and give it to all your friends and
know that you're still perfectly legally entitled to do so.  As you say, the
BSA won't be breathing down their necks.  And companies continue to work on
their copy protection and work on getting those programs to report back to
have illegal copies disabled.  With FOSS, you don't have to fight that battle.

I also make the point that all your upgrades are free, as well, and this often
gets those people who know that they might have that nice unlicensed copy of
${proprietary_software} but they can't upgrade it or get any security patches
because Microsoft will lock them out in a trice.  Further, you can easily and
safely give copies to everyone - while some people might be adept at finding
copies of programs they want, it's harder to get away with copying proprietary
software if it's going to report back when you give the same serial number away.

Yes, a lot of those things are technical, and this is why I think the points
you focus on are the highlights.  I hate playing the bogeyman - "the software
police will come and get you!" - when really these people are just trying to
use what they see as an essentially free resource (i.e. computing).

I must remember that term "software slavery" - it's a very good way of
summarising the whole situation with proprietary software.

Have fun,

Paul
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