Originally posted by bousozoku
You've got some good points, and I appreciate you idealism. I would like to agree with you on all of it, but I can't.
It's nice to be idealistic. I was. Old or young, stealing is stealing.
perhaps five years ago i would have bowed my head and said "yes i am just being idealistic," but not here and now. what i was discussing is no longer an ideal, but a market reality that software developers for the most part are embracing. Open source projects HAVE proven themselves, and calling them idealists does not discount the fact that they proved superior products at reasnable prices. I am not saying that people should pirate software. in fact i specifically said i wasnt encouraging this, what i am saying is that software developers who blindly refuse to change with the changing market will have problems, and simply blaming piracy is simply an easy excuse. What is more to blame is poor liciencing and poor distribution.
Every software product is different, so no one liciencing scheme can be used for all, but if your product is not selling and you know that people are illegally using your product (ie your product must be good) then you should try to find a liciencing scheme that better suites your products needs. I am not suggesting you through your hands up in the air and say 'ill let them pirate my software, and ill keep writing it for free! woohoo!' what i am suggesting is that instead of sticking to the old paradigm of creating a boxed cd on a store shelf perhaps you should try another form of liciencing and distribution.
There are many people who make good money writing free software. There are many people who make good money writing shareware. All paradigms are crumbling, and sucessful developers will be those who not only create a cgood product, but those who also find liciencing and distribution models thats are financially sound.
Contrary to what many will have you believe pirating software is not easy. Unless you happen to have a friend who has a copy of the software he can burn for you, you are going to spend lots of time (and often money) trying to find what you need. And just like mp3s, the quality of what you get is poor. But wait, there is more, to get what you need, you have to also get lots of things you don't need, so that you can trade. You end up filling hundreds of CDs with software you will never use on the off chance that someone who has what you need will need something on one of your cds. You also have to secure a very fast broadband connection. The typical basic cable or dsl plan rarely has a fast enough upstream to be able to trase successfully. So in the end you pay more for your broadband connection, you buy extra cds, you spend time downloading and uploading things you dont need or care about, to secure something that may or may not be safe to use and that will be out of date in 6 months, requiring you to go through the whole process again. Furthermore you can never stop the process of acquiring software, because if you do you will find that all the stuff you have to trade is out of date. you have to stay in the game even if you have everything you need, because if you dont it will require even mroe time to get back into the swing of things 6 months down the road when you find you need to update your software.
Why am i telling you all this? because some people like to have you believe that all you do is fire up some app download what you want and walk away happy 10 minutes later with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of software. And this is important, because it means that your liciencing scheme does not have to be a perfect fit. As long as it is close enough people will rather buy than go through the trouble fo stealing. Also do not forget that people are both materialistic and moral (interesting combo no?) people want the real thing in their hands (not some burnt cd). and they also feel an obligation to pay for things they use (just remember all the people who buy cds even though they could just burn a cd with mp3s, they want the real thing and they want to support the artist).
what this means is that people generally want to purchase software that they use. what is holding them back is liciencing and distribution models that do not suit their needs. as with any product you must not only create something good but you must find the best (most financially sound) manner of delivering it to the consumer. again, i am not saying free, and i am not saying open source. but what i am saying is that freeware, shareware, open source has all been created because the developers realized that market paradigms created for physical products do not transfer well to the software market. they needed to find alternatives.
lastly, consider mac os x. consider the complex mix of different liciencing schemes that come together to bring us osx.
