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Poll: Are you a software pirate?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#41

Post by sliverstorm »

bphogan wrote: post #22
yozhik wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know I'm in the minority here, but Photoshop is worth every penny to me. I don't upgrade to every version (I usually skip every other one) but I don't steal it, and I certainly don't find GIMP to be an honest substitute. If you dabble in graphics, or are making things for the web, it's fine. If you do some of the things I do, GIMP just doesn't have the workflow or the features yet. I really don't want to turn this…

Non-linear video editing is even more so, I feel. I do not do a whole lot of it, but I've discovered that there really is no halfway decent free option (besides iMovie, but that's only 'free' if you bought a mac, and it's incredibly weak)

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#42

Post by sliverstorm »

sophacles wrote: post #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 disappoi…

It is true, there is a lot of throwaway software out there. Things are complicated even more when the free stuff is better than the paid stuff (Imgburn anyone?) Just about the only miscellaneous 3rd party software I have paid for in recent memory was mIRC, because no other IRC client for Windows ever satisfied me and I found a discount worth $10. Essentially, there is no little 'killer app' I have found that just magically fills my computer world with unicorns and rainbows, or frankly was even worth using.

The real pillars of software though- Photoshop, Matlab, Orcad, and so on- accept no substitutes (well, except for possibly their direct competitors). Maybe it's a result of the sky-high pricing, but they generally really are good (and even if they aren't perfect, they are still the best)

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#44

Post by masterj »

reynolds wrote: post #16
PStamatiou wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

True. I guess what I really meant is that if you're using a platform where most everything is free you don't really need to pirate software. Macs, in my opinion, could almost be lumped in with Windows.

My impression is that mac users tend to buy software more often than windows users as a percentage of the whole, at least for small to medium applications. Examples: Textmate, Transmit, Sizeup, Divvy, etc. I highly doubt that would apply to behemoths like photoshop though.

Not that I have any data to back that up, just my general impression.

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#47

Post by naner »

Not anymore. Early in college I pirated a ton of software and used almost none of it. Mid-college I started using linux and shortly after just stuck with free software.

I can afford to buy expensive software now but the truth is I don't really need much fancy software to get things done.

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#48

Post by rmc »

sprout wrote: post #38
msmith wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes to all of your reasons, but I think you missed the biggest one: - Many of us produce and sell software and we understand that pirating makes it harder for people like us to make a living at it.

I actually voted both yes and no, since I do pirate software, but only software I own. I don't consider it piracy, because it doesn't impact anyone's ability to make a living off of it (it usually just saves support costs) but the law sees it differently. Also I did pirate a game from the early 90's because I couldn't figure out where to send a check. http://downloadgameonline.blogspot.com/2008/08/enchantasy-qu... Ac…

"Pirate your own software"? I don't think that would count as piracy. If you own the copyright on it, or own the company that owns the copyright, or run the company that owns the copyright, then surely you can copy it as many times as you want. How could it be possible to view any copying of that as 'piracy'.

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#49

Post by sirn »

The only pirated software in my machine is Adobe Photoshop. Living as a poor web developer in a poor country, single Photoshop license is 6 months worth of salary to me. No way I could afford that now, but I will in the future. Either that, or I hope Pixelmator will be able to replace Photoshop for web development in a near future.

Re: Poll: Are you a software pirate?

#50

Post by SeriousGuy »

aw3c2 wrote: post #34
SeriousGuy wrote: post #23

no right now thanks to MSDN I get most of the stoftware via the university. Before yeah, esp MATLAB which is worth being pirated :D

I was really really close to do that since my brother suggested it but then discovered that the FOSS tool Octave runs all my Matlab stuff perfectly. It is only very basic matrix manipulation and calculations though.

I have found Octave to be lacking some aspects, also there is a significant network effect with Matlab, since most of the research groups publish code in Matlab, you gotta have it if you want to compete with them
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