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Poll: Are you a software pirate?

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Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#2
Honestly, with the exception of a few things work pays for (and I don't need outside of work -- looking at you outlook calendar), I have no need for any software that isn't (legally) freely available. If I owned a mac myself, I would consider buying a copy of omnigraffle, but, again, I don't ever have use cases for it outside of work...

In fact, when I have bought software in the past, I have ended up pretty disappointed with it. Most recently, I was having hard drive issues (fat fingered a partition delete on the wrong drive). At a friends suggestion I bought eazeus to recover it. This $50 purchase was a giant waste of money, and did nothing to fix it. Later another friend pointed me at a free tool (testdisk) that did fix it. This seems to be the common experience for me -- pay software is way over hyped and under performing.

Does this ring true for anyone else? Is there some magic software out there that is worth the money in personal life any more?

Aside: exception to all of the above is video games. I have no problem buying the occasional game.

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#3

Honestly, with the exception of a few things work pays for (and I don't need outside of work -- looking at you outlook calendar), I have no need for any software that isn't (legally) freely available. If I owned a mac myself, I would consider buying a copy of omnigraffle, but, again, I don't ever have use cases for it outside of work... In fact, when I have bought software in the past, I have ended up pretty disappoi…

There's a couple of software I'm happy to pay for, sound software, utilities, etc.

If I see a software I like, I pay for it if I have to.

I find that perfectly acceptable (eg to pay for software I use). Software is expensive to make.

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#5
post #3

Honestly, with the exception of a few things work pays for (and I don't need outside of work -- looking at you outlook calendar), I have no need for any software that isn't (legally) freely available. If I owned a mac myself, I would consider buying a copy of omnigraffle, but, again, I don't ever have use cases for it outside of work... In fact, when I have bought software in the past, I have ended up pretty disappoi…

There's a couple of software I'm happy to pay for, sound software, utilities, etc. If I see a software I like, I pay for it if I have to. I find that perfectly acceptable (eg to pay for software I use). Software is expensive to make.

I too have no problem paying for software I use. I just prefer to use no-charge software, as I rarely find for-money software that is better than the no-charge equivalent. If it is not better, why would I pay for no-benefit?

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#6

Honestly, with the exception of a few things work pays for (and I don't need outside of work -- looking at you outlook calendar), I have no need for any software that isn't (legally) freely available. If I owned a mac myself, I would consider buying a copy of omnigraffle, but, again, I don't ever have use cases for it outside of work... In fact, when I have bought software in the past, I have ended up pretty disappoi…

I have felt this way for a long time: In general, the more you pay for software, the worse it is (this is why anything with the word 'Enterprise' in the title frightens me). Note: I don't play many games, so this may not apply to them.

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#7
post #4

I really only use free software. Outside of software development I don't really have any other software on my laptops. I have purchased tools and never pirate them. Is pirating more of a Windows user's thing?

I think it is. I only use un-pirateable software.

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#8
post #4

I really only use free software. Outside of software development I don't really have any other software on my laptops. I have purchased tools and never pirate them. Is pirating more of a Windows user's thing?

> Is pirating more of a Windows user's thing?

No. I know many designer/Mac folk that have never paid for any Adobe software in their lives and they pride themselves on each CS update so they can play with new brushes in Photoshop. (Okay I'm being a bit sensationalist.. CS5 Photoshop does bring in some pretty nifty content aware features)

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#10
I am one of those awful people that pirates Photoshop and barely uses it, but prefers the UX and feature set to GIMP's.

However, other than that I almost only use free software at work.

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