Sorry,
Hirudin - I'm STILL doing my income taxes (deadline is April 30 in Canada). I don't mind paying taxes - looks like this is a good thing
- but why does it have to be so complex? Of course, being a geek, I am using QuickTax to do them, but I've never found sitting in front of a computer so thoroughly UNENJOYABLE. Anyway, it has left me irritable and I overreacted to your post.
I completely agree, anything I can say on the subject has been said before.
This statement applies to me, as well...
Really, when you get down to it... Using software that you didn't pay for is actually only breaking the terms of the license. If you break the license by using academic software for commercial purposes you're just as bad as any other traditional pirate.
Can't argue with any of that. This is why software piracy is so complex - nothing tangible has been stolen (ie no box has vanished off a shelf without being paid for) - and I as I tried to point out - in some ways it's difficult to determine how the "victim" suffers from the practice, some even argue (see above) that at least some of the "victims" actually benefit from it! - so it comes down to bandwidth and intellectual property. But even these things are difficult to nail down as having been "stolen" because many developers/vendors encourage prospective end-users to download their products and take them for a test drive, so bandwidth is not an issue (but I know the counter-argument is that if you tie up the bandwidth with the intention of stealing the software in the first place, you are not using the bandwidth as it was intended, and yada, yada, yada) and intellectual property doesn't really fit, either, because if I run a pirated copy of Office, I'm not likely to bother to 1. tell everyone that I wrote the software that I wrote my honours thesis in myself and/or 2. imply either directly or indirectly anywhere in what I have written that I used OpenOffice instead, so your comment about the licence is accurate, I think. And your comment about paying for the right to use an app in one way but using it in another amounting to the same thing is spot on, too - you've paid for a licence but by using it in a manner different from that which you paid for the right to, you're breaking the terms of the licence, which is no different than using software without paying for it at all.
And, I think I may not have worded the "different than intended" remark very well. What I mean is: as far as I know, academic software generally has some clause in the EULA that says that you cannot use the software for commercial purposes.
No, your wording was fine. All my examples were a bit OTT and my remark about hyperbole at the end of my post was meant to apply to the whole post, not just the last paragraph, so my wording was the culprit, not yours.
Dear god, don't let this turn into a Mac vs. PC thread! These are more tired than the pro/con arguments on software piracy...
Absolutely! I hate Mac vs. PC flamewars and REALLY don't want to see this develop into one. I also don't want to see this degenerate into a flamewar about software piracy so thanks for your measured reply
Perry - thanks for the link on moral relativism (I think - my head is still spinning. To paraphrase Steve Martin, I don't know what to believe anymore!).
Tinjaw -
...even though I am against piracy, I also do not agree with almost all of the ways that it is currently enforced.
I completely agree with this statement.
Right, off to try to find more loopholes in the tax code... hang on, the government of Canada is trying to get at my money so that it can fund running the country and provide services that benefit myself and my fellow citizens and I'm trying to get off with paying as litlle (preferably nothing) for those services as I can... Kind of sounds like a software developer/consumer dynamic, doesn't it! Crud, does this make me a hypocrite?!
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I've actually paid the $19.95 for the full version because I use it ALL the time, so if anyone comes along and says "a ha! here's the e-mail/an archive copy of a website that proves that we should get this for free" I'm out of luck!
Presumably, their 