the market for piracy

Piracy is a double-edged sword. On the one hand there are individuals and organisations who blatantly run ripped-off software with no intention of ever paying for it and use it for productive work for personal or corporate profit. But there's another side where people who work with computers 'pirate' one copy of the new/latest software to gain personal experience of it then champion or support the rollout of hundreds, possibly thousands of legal copies across organisation(s). This kind of piracy actually generates revenue for the big boys and drives the adoption of their product forward, and while their lawyers would heartily disapprove I've seen it happen in the real world time and again over the years. Now I know nobody on these forums would condone let alone engage in such a practice but it does go to show this area is a little more complex than it might at first appear

I think when you're talking about the developing world, arguments that may hold water in the West are simply irrelevant. Do you honestly expect someone to pay an amount for Microsoft Office that exceeds their monthly wage? I think software companies have written off these areas anyway as it would be almost impossible to police the piracy.

Everyone is making a valid argument . I am impressed about the multiplicity and diversity of this aurgument since we all belong to different schools of thought, atleast one should speak in his language.

the reason why I am for commercial OSes is that people should be rewarded for their creativity. else they wont bring out their best( I know sahirh is coming to eat me raw..a strong disciple o f open source) . I hope we are all aware that people produce operating systems for a living.

there is no reason why socialism as an economic system shouldnt work. but the chink in their armour was that people's productive ability was suppressed and capitalism will fail because it cant contain luxury.

Or maybe there should be price discrimination in software production ,maybe 1/5th of the price in favour of developing countries. then I will buy even so that Mr. bill will stop reminding me that I may be a victim of sofware counterfeiting.

when we get to you level, our income will also get to your level
too ,for now we spend most of our time battling with hunger than anything else.

I rest my case

long live firewall.cx