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Re: M$ IL latest craze
- To: Matan Ziv-Av <zivav@CS.bgu.ac.il>
- Subject: Re: M$ IL latest craze
- From: Liran Zvibel <liranz@actcom.co.il>
- Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 11:38:43 +0300
- Cc: Ariel Biener <ariel@fireball.tau.ac.il>, linux-il@linux.org.il
- Delivered-To: linux-il-linux-il@linux.org.il
- In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.10_heb2.08.9905301630310.1474-100000@lace>; from Matan Ziv-Av on Sun, May 30, 1999 at 04:45:24PM +0300
- References: <Pine.LNX.4.10_heb2.08.9905301540390.2823-100000@fireball.tau.ac.il> <Pine.SOL.4.10_heb2.08.9905301630310.1474-100000@lace>
- Sender: linux-il-bounce@cs.huji.ac.il
I'm joining this discussion a bit late, so I'll Cut'n'Paste from several
emails. I'll snip emails without using the <snip> keyword.
At the end there are some additional assorted things from me.
Quoting Matan Ziv-Av <zivav@CS.bgu.ac.il>:
> There are cases when the "I am not wealthy enough so I am allowed
> to steal" make sense.
May I ask you this one little question: If you're not wealthy enough to pay few
hundred Shekels for the software on your computer how the hell did you spend
several THOUSANDS Shekels on the hardware for the computer?
How come people are wealthy enough to buy the state of the art computer
hardware, and then cannot spend a little more on software?
> There is no such thing as pirating software (unless you raid the ship that
> ships all those boxes), and using software without proper license is not
> stealing, it is copyright violation.
Well, by violating the copyright you steal money from the software company that
created that product!
That license is all the income of software companies. If people stop paying
for the products, software companies will have to stop paying the
programmers...
> I think sending people to prison because they can't pay a debt is not
> something that a civilized country should do. Luckily, most judges and MKs
> in israel agree about this.
The one thing all of you do not understand, is that paying for software is not
a debt. You don't HAVE TO use proprietary software. If you want you can only use
free programs (by free I mean a free license, with or without open source).
Software is not like food. People can live very well without proprietary
software on their computer. Proprietary software is more like the new Kottege
"Yoga" -- you can buy it, it costs a bit more and tastes differently, but you
can certainly live without that!
> How is a CD I paid for "other's property"?
Once you paid for it, the CD (itself) is yours. The intellectual property (the
data) on it is not yours. You cannot buy a book by Einstein, and claim that
all of the context is yours (you merely paid for the pages and ink, and not
the context!)
Most of the times, when buying a CD you don't only buy a physical media but
also a license to use the context (and even then you purchased only a limited
license)
> (that says that whenever you run a program, you
> actually copy it - from disk to ram)
The problem is not whether you copy the data (most licenses lets you create
backups of the data), the problem is with the illegal installation process of
the software.
Quoting Ariel Biener <ariel@fireball.tau.ac.il>:
> For example, shareware software. The prices are usually so 50-60nis, after
> the try out period. I don't know one Israeli who ever payed for shareware.
In fact, you do know at least one Israeli that pays for shareware. My home
computer (and of course the one at work) has only legal copies installed (this
is easy since Linux is the only OS). Since I use Linux and want to promote its
use I buy products for it. Last week I paid 90$ for Simplicity (which is a
great rapid application development tool for Java that is downloadable from
the Internet, and you can pay Online for that (or by phone and other means))
A week before that I bought CivII: CTP (which is not shareware...). I'm not
going to send the whole list to the ml.
I also pay for my (legal!) audio CDs since I think we should support the
artists so they would be able to make some more music instead of having other
jobs so they would be able to pay the bills.
Quoting "Stanislav Malyshev a.k.a Frodo" <frodo@sharat.co.il>:
> Also, yet another point. Show me single shop in Israel where I can find a
> freshly-reeased game without 3-4 monthes lag?
You can always order from the U.S as I did with CivII:CTP. You only look for
excuses how not to pay and not for the solutions.
Quoting Ben Nes Michael <miki@canaan.co.il>:
> In the age that software products are selling in millions of peaces there is
> no reason why the price is so high (I believe that on each 1 legal program
> there are at least 5 not).
>
> But if the software company would reduce the price (lets say half) she will
> double her sells because one of the 5 thief's will say "In this price ?
> i wont steal ! its not worth me !"
The problem is that software products are not hotdogs that can be cooked in 5
minutes. The software companies spend years to ship high-quality products,
and don't want to see them being sold for 20$ a piece! It's insulting!
If you don't think that the products worth the price you have to pay -- simply
don't use them and find some better products that do worth their price (or an
open sourced alternative). If you do believe that those products' quality is
high enough for you to use it every day (or week/month/year) you should also
pay for them!!!!
Here begins my part:
As a programmer (and a former sysadmin) that works both at a commercial
company and at home when I have some spare time, it makes me really angry to
read opinions like most of you expressed.
A programming team (or a single programmer) has a lot of work to do before the
wonderful moment of product shipment arrives. When that moment comes, however,
the company has to make money so it can pay all the programmers that worked on
that project. Thus it sells licenses of the product to the masses, and pay the
programmers .You should also remember that the company paid all of the team
members for the last few years without income, and also had to pay some other
bills. You see, software companies don't get rent/electricity/water/food for
free, and even though people don't go to jail if their debts are not paid they
usually pay all of the bills...
When I program at my own time, I let every one use it and even lets them use
the source code. But I don't have to. I use the GPL since I believe that we
should share our intellectual property, and since I have a (very well) paying
job that lets me do that.
If people would not pay my company I would not be able to release my code,
since I would have to make money form it. But wait, people will not pay me
too, so I will have to stop programming and find a better paying (!) job.
You will have only one minor problem, though. I will not be the only one. Once
software companies stop being profitable, you won't have good software
products anymore.
Another important point is the following: Only the programmer (or the
company he/she works at) can decide how he wants to release his product. You
don't get to vote here. If the programmer decided to use the GPL (or some
artistic or other license) -- good for you, if the programmer decided that
you should pay in order to use his product (that he spent a lot of time
working on), and you decide that you need this piece of software, you have to
pay him!
I think that we should enforce that copyright laws some more in Israel. The
problem is that neither the police, nor the people at the Knesset actually
understand about those issues (I'm willing to bet that every Knesset (either
one of the to we have right now) member have a computer full of ILLEGAL
software in it at home.)
Enforcement should not be that hard to accomplish. All you have to do is
decide on the punishment (say pay triple the price of the stolen software on
your computer to the companies that created it, or your computer will be taken
away from you.) and special agents will go from house to house and check for
the validity of the licenses.
This will solve several problems:
1. It will give jobs to a lot of unemployed people (the software companies
will be able to pay them once they bring the money to the real owner
(software companies)
2. People will pay for the software they use.
3. People will understand that software, (like hardware and most of the rest
of the things in life) costs money.
4. The software companies will have more money to invest in the development
cycle, so the quality of their future products will be higher.
Now lets get back to the topic: I think that at a Microsoft event I
participated few months ago, they stated that they will develop their future
products with internal bidi support, so there will be no need for special
porting it to Hebrew. I might not remember it correctly , though.
Liran.
--
__________________________________________________________________________
Liran Zvibel. | " Give a man a fish and you
System Programmer, System Administrator. | feed him for a day;
email : liranz@actcom.co.il | teach him to use the Net
phone : 972 - 3 - 6493939 | and he won't bother you
home : http://www.math.tau.ac.il/~liranz| for weeks. "
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