On 09/02/2012 10:17 PM, Timothy Miller wrote:
<snip>
My son's behavior gives me pain.
That's what children are for; to cause their parents pain.
Meanwhile, maybe we should zoom out and look at the bigger picture. About sixteen percent of the
world's population consumes 80% of its resources. This is not exactly fair, either. Are we all
pirates, squabbling among ourselves for a "fair" share of the loot? Maybe
"fair" is an illusion, often self-serving.
'Fair' is fairly unfair. However the open-source movement exists for
those who cannot pay.
The simple fact is that thousands of programmers (squeaky Stallman among
them) have given
a lot of their time and effort to provide an alternative to expensive
software.
I have, in front of me, 2 computers that I paid about 100 Euros (for the
2 of them), a flat screen
monitor I paid 100 Euros for, and another flat-screen monitor I
inherited from an aunty who died.
One is my main Linux work-horse, the other is my faux-Mac, running Mac
OS 10.6.8 inside
VMplayer. I don't feel that "all you rich types out there" have somehow
cheated me, nor do I feel
hard done by in that my 2 machines are 2-4 years "out-of-date".
I cannot afford Windows and the expensive virus-fuelled consequences of
using it, nor can I afford Adobe programmes . . . (admittedly I don't
like Windows very much anyway) . . .
So Ubuntu, GIMP and Inkscape are there for the likes of me, as are
Audacity, Fontforge and so forth.
There really is no reason to steal software nowadays as there are a vast
number of alternatives
to Commercial software.
I cannot afford a new Macintosh computer, but a while back I was able to
buy an install disk of Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) so now I can run it in
VMplayer on a Linux box - using, with the sole exception
of RunRev Livecode, open source software.
------------------------------------------------
What is bad (quite apart from the moral problems associated with crap
like border and immigration
controls) is that Microsoft have so successfully got a grip on people's
minds that they would far
rather run pirate Windows, pirate Microsoft Office, pirate Photoshop, et
al, than go for the
Open Source & Free alternatives.
To a certain extent, until Microsoft stop shoving their product down
people's throats in quite
such a full-on fashion, while not condoning piracy, I find myself not
really caring about the fact
that a fat percentage of the world is merrily steaming along on pirate
Microsoft and Adobe products;
and, as they already make buckets of money from legitimate sales, I
really wonder how much it fusses them.
-----------------------------------------------
However, as we are all aware, stealing from a giant can lead to stealing
from smaller people; and
it is the smaller people who suffer more. I don't have a lawyer to push
through thumping great
legal cases when my stuff gets nicked!
-----------------------------------------------
Richmond.
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