My opinion is that your only enabling people to complain by continuing to discuss it. That's how these types of charatcers work.... as long as there remains a discussion they feel like they might actually get something for free if people talk enough.

You'll never shut them up, so instead, make them not exist anymore by ignoring their opinions. They do not need or deserve an explanation as they already know that things cost money.

I just think that we become the fool by enabling them.

These days in the USA you can't even return software (or music) that you don't like. I don't personally find this a good enough reason to pirate software and music, but lots of others do.

-HM

There is a difference between complaining and having a valid point. I am not a "Character" but a hard working American who expects to be treated fairly and get good value for what he pays for.



Man that's really a nice thought. Let's shut them up and people don't exist or have a right to a opinion. I love your skins NT but what's up with the mean attitude?

Some people will complain no matter how good they have it.  It doesn't mean that I have to listen to them.  And if no one listens to whiners maybe (however unlikely) they'll stop out of 1) boredom  or 2) relizing that their behavior needs modification for the current situation.

I don't think it's mean.

Mumblefratz, I wonder if thats an age thing?  I don't like renting for the most part.  I pay cash for my cars.  Paid the house off in 7 years.  Don't pay interest on credit cards.  Now that I'am on a fixed income, I pick and choose what I buy.

Some things like U-Haul, netflix and 1 time use stuff I'll rent.  Some software I am forced to rent or use the free versions.

Chasbo, imagine your at a check out line and your child starts stomping their feet because you won't buy them any candy. If you crack and get them some candy, they will always stomp their feet. It isn't mean to tell them no. It's just the wise thing to do.

Sometimes its better to remain free and open. Look at linux, one of the most secure, high quality operating systems in existence. All done by the volunteer work of thousends of people, and the vast majority of internet infrastructure is based on it.

Many have the misperception it is just a bunch of amateurs or hobbyists that make it. This is very unfortunate. Many are academics, and many great advances in software engineering are done in the public space and institutions we all benefit from.

It doesn't just end with the OS. The very philosophy of open source inspired people who develop software for that platform to make it open and accessible, so others can contribute.

On windows you have the other extreme. The operating system is extremely secretive, and the people behind it seem to have a pathological hatred for everything that is open and public. As a result, many developers for win32 ask $$$ for even the tiniest ftp client. And the few software that is free, is very rarely open source. It goes so far as that many feel you can even "own" ideas and knowledge.

I realise the developers at stardock need to pay their rents and feed their families, and I happily support them by buying their software, which I think is at a fair and reasonable price. But the reason I'm a customer here is because I also believe in the open participation and involvement of the stardock team, if it weren't for that, I doubt I would have purchased.

NT I agree totally with your last statement. I want to leave this discussion now.

"What the market will bear" has long been a tenet of many businesses. Thankfully not all. Most sell/rent at reasonable prices (if you don't think so don't buy). A huge number of companies and individuals give away their intellectual work to the community for whatever motivation. My point is, if you can't afford it then don't buy it and don't bitch. I do sympathize with those outside the US that get charged huge up-charges for software. There will always be those that take advantage. Just remember that no one is "ENTITLED" to anything in life, not love, food, shelter.... Be thankful for what you have and a community that will listen to our rants and our problems. IMHO

While is conversation is steering a different route, I would like to say that, there are a lot of people who simply don't understand why paying for software is important. I'm not talking about a moral or legal issue. They simply don't get why the prices of software differ. Moreover, they don't know the most of the uses of the software they already have. So, they don't get the full use out of what they are paying for. This often leads to frustration and confusion. We see it all the time in these forums.

Moreover, the less computer savvy tend become even more frustrated when they are the victims of things like Sony's rootkit, starforce, or hacks due to security flaws. Things they payed for left their system in worse shape then it was before.

I'm not making excuses for anyone here. I'm just pointing out that the reason some people are annoyed by software much more "human."

To some the difference between love and sex is so subtle as to be nonexistent.

However I'm glad someone got my joke. It's an oldie but a goodie. And it's not so clear to me that the analogy falls apart. There's nothing dishonorable about the oldest profession. It, like software licensing, only seeks to receive payment for services rendered.

So we’ve already established what you are, now we’re merely haggling over price. (Yet another old joke that is meant only as such ).

However joking aside if I have the choice I will always go for purchase over rental. Like I said I have no problem paying for value received. But on the other hand there is a certain amount of misrepresentation in licensing agreements because regardless of the user being forced to electronically “sign” Eula’s most users assume they are actually purchasing something when in fact they’re only leasing it.

In my and most people’s minds the value of a time limited lease is far less than the value of something that you own. The misrepresentation is simply that people pay a certain amount assuming that it is indeed a purchase whereas if they realized it was only a rental they might not feel the price was worth it.

That’s all I’m talking about. I simply believe it should be made explicit that you paying for the use of the software for a limited amount of time that will require regular expenditures to continue using it. As long as this is explicitly stated and made clear then the user has full information on which to base his decision and the transaction is fair. However allowing the user to believe he’s getting something that he really isn’t is not a fair transaction.

By the way, none of this balking should apply to Stardock whose products, at least the ones I’ve purchased, can be used forever, as far as I can tell.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm still hesitant about using my credit card online. I took the chance last year and purchased Object Desktop, crossed my fingers, hit the send button and all was well. So I've bought a few other programs since from Stardock and a WC subscription. But I'd still feel nervous on other sites besides this one.

If you can afford a fancy PC, you don't need to pirate. Don't steal CS3, use GIMP, Inkscape, and the variety of other freeware/open-source competitors.

It falls under greed/guilt justification IMO. Many people with that mentality want every thing for free and with Piracy rampant they typically get it that way. So many of them gripe about the costs to justify "in their own minds" grabbing Pirated editions. Basically many do it to make them selves feel less the thief when downloading Pirated materials.


Just my 2 cents..

Um, in the thread that you were referring to no one is complaining about having to pay for software. There were a number of people who, like here, are complaining about these mythical people who refuse to purchase anything, and presumably would simply become homeless from unwillingness to buy a house or pay rent, and would quickly starve from refusal to buy food. There were a number of people, myself included, who dislike the modular content method of distributing software, believing that it is worse for the consumer, but no one is saying that they would prefer communism or that developers willingly bankrupt themselves to give out everything for free.

The problem seems to stem for the title, with "pay-for" content. Pretty much all content except for basic, necessary patches are on some sort of "pay-for" system. The two systems argued between, a more modular distribution scheme and a less modular distribution scheme, both involve paying money for goods or services (not sure which one software would actually fall under there). Despite this, people who support a less modular system are whiners who hate choice, freedom, and capitalism, and those who support a more modular system are customer-hating, company-miming parrots who hate low prices, quality products, and competition, and would gladly pay more for worse products if the company told them to.

Aren't forums grand?

I may be in the minority, but I consider the .NET CLI/CLR to be the most important software invention of the last 15 years (yes, even moreso than my beloved C++). A common compiled bytecode, standardized as an international standard, which is designed to be the compile target for innumerable languages (compared with JavaBytecode, which is designed to be compiled from only the Java language).

.NET would never have come from the FSF community nor the Open Source community. It requires too much incubation, too much singular vision and direction, to have been designed among the "bazaar" of the open source community. It's just not the kind of thing that Open Source is good at making. They're good at taking something like that and improving on it (see Mono), but to invent it to begin with requires more than the Open Source community is able to provide.



Well, except for the last few years when they've been opening up various bits of software to varying degrees.



That is very strange logic. You like the product enough to say that it's worth the money, but you wouldn't have bought it if not for something that has very little relevance to the actual product itself.

Then again, it is very much in keeping with the FSF ideals: support something not for what they do for you, but because their ideology matches yours.



Only when you completely misinterpret a conversation. The "less modular" group never once disparaged their opponents in the way you describe.

Alfonse, I know that neither group ever said those labels. I am part of the less modular group, I know that I never called anyone anything like that. My point there was simply that the thread was set up in a way that hindered actual debate. For this end I pointed out two extreme examples of what could be said by each group, on par with calling one's opponent Hitler. I was not trying to incite any hostilities, merely make a sarcastic call for more debate and less insult. Sorry if this was unclear and seemed like throwing about insults.

Not mythical. In fact very much a reality. If it was a myth there would be no torrent sites offering pirated materials, no car thefts, no robberies, no burglaries, no muggings etc... the fact is there are people out there who dont want to pay for anything. With the advent of the internet it has become more rampant as many feel "they buy the PC, all software should be free".

Many say well "it's not hurting any body since were not stealing any Tangible goods, no Physical property was stolen so their not out anything"  WRONG. That dev or artist etc made the materials with the intent to sell it to make a living.. to feed their families.. To pay their bills.  So by stealing their programs/art works etc. People are essentially taking the food right out of the devs families mouths, Denying them the ability to earn a decent living, pay bills and just get paid for at times months or years worth of work... Yeh.. How many people are willing to put that kind of time in at work and not expect a pay check????? 


Il wager if any Entitlists  went to work and busted their humps and then were told "hey you should be doing this for Free so were not paying you" they would be throwing a fit and threatening to sue. Ironic huh ?

As for Open source software? I fully support it. A few of us here actually helped get one of the most popular (of it's time) open source desktop customization programs off the ground.

But the reality is that Paid developers/coders get the job done quicker if only for the fact, they get paid to do it under a controlled environment. Im not saying that open source cant stand up to built for $$ software, just that push come to shove the paid programmers are typically more organized. why ? because they have to be. Open source typically programmers come and go as their interest peaks and falls to the way side. Often they leave another dev to try to figure out what they were doing and go from there. These types of issues can and have been often very hampering to the open source community. But being open source it comes with the territory, people come and go as they choose.


With paid programmers\artists this is their life line, their way of living and many of them spend their free time developing the very open source programs many surfers covet so deeply. What some fail to see is, that by ripping off Paid developers they may starve out the very Programmers building their fave open source Progs, as many can only afford the free time due to the revenues Provided by the for sale programs.

Food for thought huh ?

If that is what you refer to then that is simply theft rather than any philosophy of "software should be free in all cases". Software is generally easier to acquire illegally than most other, physical products and there is a perception of lessened criminality as, even if one is indirectly hurting the company by not purchasing the software, no one is being actively denied a product in the same way that stealing a car would deny someone a car. Theft always exists, in every society, time, and product. The real issues then here would be consequences and the decreased perception of guilt.

yes Please realize that I do not imply that all those who follow the latter's thinking indulge in warez . but you also must understand that at times, that one often spawns from the other, So occasionally the lines between the two get blurry.

Confessions of a freeware junkie.

While most people were using Windows 98 and ME, I was still using 95. I had spent a small fortune on any kind of program or game that caught my attention. When XP came out, and we finally got the internet in our area, I made the jump.
Imagine my surprise when 99% of my software became obsolete. I started buying more. I was looking around for McAfee's Nuts and Bolts for XP because the one for 95 didn't work. Of course, there isn't one for XP. I went through several store bought programs that "looked" like it only to be disappointed. I'd already spent quite a lot on XP, Works, Security, Office etc. many pc games and other apps. I had to build a new pc to play the new games. That jump to XP was really draining me. (Then comes Vista and another one on the way.)
I found freeware. As many of these apps started expiring, charging, or going under all together, I found many alternatives for what I needed. (I found Stardock through MajorGeeks while perusing apps.)
That, in a nutshell, is why I prefer to look for a free alternative. There are some things worth paying for. I don't mind paying for something I want or need. I COULD get by on open source or freeware, but there are some things that I like having.
Although I had explored hacks (some things don't have trial versions), I don't condone it. That is cheating and stealing. There's nothing on any of my pcs that don't belong there. If I can't buy it or find a free alternative, I do without.

I use CCleaner often. It's one of my favorite apps. If Piriform decided to start charging for it, I wouldn't get that update. But they have a stable of apps that they DO charge for. CCleaner to them is a lost leader. It gets people looking at them and their other offerings. To me, that's the way it should be. I know there are a few artists here that operate the same way. Kudos to you. If one day I get a notice that the skin I'm using will be locked unless I pay, I'll have a decision to make. Probably which one will replace it. It's the nature of the beast.

There are tons of very good software around that you don't have to pay for. Nearly all of the tools I'm using - browser, eMail client, IRC client, FTP client, office suite, image viewer, media players, system tools etc. are freeware. And all of those are very good, mature programs.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

However, like children who received so many gifts that they start crying and stomping their feet on a day without one, there are always people who take it for granted that they don't have to pay for good software. And that's wrong. While it's absolutely amazing how much professional software you can get today without paying a dime, this totally depends on the dedication and generosity of the people who make these products. There's no entitlement to free software whatsoever, no matter how much any spoiled child may have gotten used to getting everything for free. It's the other way round, the people who produce free products are entitled to receive the gratefulness of these products' users.

Actually, you are correct in that you buy a degree. But the point is, no need to pirate textbooks. You can get an education for free at a public library.