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Why don't you pay for software?
mrainey:
The reward is/shoud be the joy of working on the software, and sharing it with people.
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With that rationale, all programmers would have to be hobbyists or independently wealthy.
wraith808:
In the end, all forms of mercantile transaction is based on ideas. There was some idea that created whatever asset is being traded. If there were no rewards for ideas, then pretty soon the people who were making the more banal items would find that they had no basis for new goods.
Gothi[c]:
With that rationale, all programmers would have to be hobbyists or independently wealthy.
-mrainey (May 26, 2007, 02:00 PM)
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That sounds about right. Either 'hobbyist' programmers or educational researchers, or actually (barely) making it on donations. Ethically, I think that is the only valid option.
Practically, since corporate control is here and isn't going anywhere soon, it is -ok- as long as users have a choice between payware and a free(not must in monetary value, but also having the freedom to copy/alter,...) alternative. And sometimes you can't just barely make it on donations, and you have to look for alternatives, then you can either work for a company that you know doesn't sell to end users but other corperations or is a governement contractor, then at least you're only feeding the beast that feeds the beast. But that doesn't make payware morally less wrong in my book.
I'm not saying there should be no reward for the effort, i'm saying giving the reward shouldn't be ENFORCED upon the user.
Yes,- this sounds naive and counts on the goodwill of people, but if you want people to be nicer in the world, you might as wel BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE.
Anyway, this is completely off topic, and I think i'm going to stfu about it :)
about the article:
From the replies, I think one can tell that the majority of the people that don't pay for payware software are young people or people with not enough monetary assets to invest in software. Businesses have to buy their software, and people who have the money, tend to spend it too. I'm not saying there isn't any piracy in businesses and i'm not saying people with money don't pirate, but these don't account for the majority of the figures.
justice:
But applying that rationale to not buying software is like saying you're not voting because you don't agree with the political system?
mrainey:
i'm saying giving the reward shouldn't be ENFORCED upon the user.
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I know from experience, the vast majority of users will not voluntarily contribute anything in the way of financial support. The programmer spends hundreds of hours creating something, the user is quite happy to get full benefit in exchange for a couple of mouse clicks to download and install.
Who's the greedy one?
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