Posted on Monday 6th of November 2006 at 14:01 in Software

Does open source software reduce your pirating

Back in September I postulated whether Open Source software is helping Kiss goodbye to piracy. Fairly obviously there were two clear groups surrounding the topic - those who agreed and those who didn't. Those who did felt that the open source community was passionate, involving and produced some fantastic free applications that remove the need for users to pirate commercial applications. On the other side of the argument, some posed that commercial applications have more functions and better compatability and is worth pirating. Read the original article here.

Where do the majority of users sit on the subject? I felt like continuing my current form of running polls on the site and set up one to tackle how users feel on the topic. Hence this one was established.

The Question
"Has open source software resulted in you not needing to pirate / pirating less?"

Two answers, Yes vs. No. Very little room for interpretation and this is not a topic that is going to be influenced much by a potentially biased readership - which this has been accused of being before. It's quite a standard question - has open source software reduced the need/market for pirating applications.

The Results
Well the results were typically inconclusive. 51.8% agreed saying it had reduced their piracy urges, with 48.2% disagreeing. See below for a rather un-needed graph of the result.

52,8% yes, 48.2% no

While the above chart is rather un-needed it adds to illustrate how close the results really are, that the piracy problem isn't really being tackled by open source software. Some would argue that more than 50% of the vote indicates a good portion of the market, vendors would agree with me, that 48.2% is still a high percentage of pirates!

So why?
I personally like Open Source/free Software, it has a busy community and is often less "spammy" than commercial applications. The most common reason given for pirating commercial applications is that they "do more", which is a fair thing to say. Photoshop does a lot more than GIMP, but you would expect that out of a $500 or so application.

What can be done?
To expect more out of free software and the supporting community is unfair, they already do a fantastic job on the most part, and it would be equally foolish to expect vendors to make their software cheaper (although I'm sure Microsoft could spare the change). Maybe attitudes need changing, that you don't *need* to pirate something you can't afford, there are alternatives.

What are your thoughts?
I'd like to know what you think, the poll only states whether open source software reduces your piracy or not, it doesn't show attitudes.

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Comments

Showing most recent 15 of 15 comments

I would love to see proprietary files bite the dust. They are a royal pain in the you-know-what to deal with. The best way is to not pirate, but instead support open source programs.

by blinkingblythe on Sunday 25th of November 2007 at 02:46

I pirate Cedega.. : ( But it should be partly GPL anyway as it’s based on wine. I just had to try it and haven’t removed it... After switching to Linux I use times less pirated software than before.

And open source programs aren’t worse than their proprietary alternatives. I can do more with Gimp than with Photoshop, because I like Gimp and I’m used to it. Gimp is more powerful, it just misses liquify.. Unless someone has created some plugins that do the same things.

by Kaur on Monday 8th of January 2007 at 06:43

While I understand the point of the vote, it doesn’t make me change my mind.

I don’t think that I should be supporting some proprietary software at the expense of good open source software.

A good example is Dia vs Visio.

I would forgive Dia for not being as good a product as Visio and continue to use it so the developers can have my feedback. It does what I want.

Visio is a expensive piece of software which wouldn’t be hard for me to pirate as I work at a large company, but what would be the point?

I would be perpetuating a proprietary file format, continuing the vendor lock-in and perpetuating the need to keep the pirate copy (or buy it,but why would I want to do that?)

One day Dia will be a very good piece of software, I will have helped that and I will reap the reward.

THIS is the point of using open source software.

by graham on Thursday 16th of November 2006 at 14:25

Open source is free. What do you expect? The reason people pirate software is because they are too cheap to buy it.

If there is a free alternative that works half decently, people will choose it over having to pay X amount of dollars.

btw. You have a magic quote issue. You might want to fix it.

by jz on Tuesday 7th of November 2006 at 19:27

it has definetly reduced my piracy urge (not that I ever did piracy ;) )

I use Paint.NET, it’s SOOOO much better than both GIMP and Photoshop IMO, I love it!

Siddhartha Gandhi
http://gvhighlights.blogspot.com

by Siddhartha Gandhi on Tuesday 7th of November 2006 at 18:34

exactly what is this ’piracy problem’ ? until we as a society realize that we’re past the age of information scarcity, and stop locking it up as such, our freedom will continue suffer at the hands of cartels who wish to put the genie back in the bottle

by _mind on Tuesday 7th of November 2006 at 15:51

I think OSS could do more to stop it if more people knew how good some of it can be. OpenOffice and even abiword or KOffice are wonderfuly functioning software but i still see people pirate Office because they don\’t know about any of the free alternatives. I think alot of people hold the old saying \"you get what you pay for\" a little to litteral when talking about OSS. While its certenly true some of the time. It isn\’t always the case. OSS\’s crown jewel Firefox competes in a space that has always been mostly free (as in beer). Which I think is part of its success. People expect not to pay for a browser so when they don\’t have to pay for firefox they don\’t feel like they are settling for something just because its cheap.

by DM on Tuesday 7th of November 2006 at 14:58

Agreed with vw.

The question makes an assumption (that you pirate(d) software)

It’s a stupid question.

by on Tuesday 7th of November 2006 at 14:50

I am totally in that 52%
Since switching to Linux, the only thing I have pirated is the Windows A/V codecs, since it is illegal in the US to install them without paying a fee to MSFT.

F/OSS just makes me feel so much better about myself. Proprietary software begins to just seem dirty.

by Paul Williams on Tuesday 7th of November 2006 at 14:44

I picked up OO.o and Gimp because my friends were giving me a hard time for "using" commercial software. I miss the polish and features of software that I can’t afford, but OSS keeps me on the right side of the law.

by Brian on Tuesday 7th of November 2006 at 14:32

pirate urge?
Now that’s an interesting idea. Open source I look at more as a resource for software for what ever reason could not would not be successful as commercial product.
I still would prefer to pirate useful but excessively expensive commercial applications.
Not to say that open source software is less useful its often more useful in most cases it’s just sometime you have to use commercial products.

by zbeast on Tuesday 7th of November 2006 at 14:30

Open source is great and can be used for pretty much any application, but there are some open sources that do not function as well as the program they try to imitate.

by Mehzor on Tuesday 7th of November 2006 at 14:26

I think a lot of people are opposed to piracy in the first place, If anyone with this view voted, I suppose they would have voted \’No\’. The amount of stuff they pirate hasn\’t been affected by OSS.

Personally, I\’m pleased OSS has given me an alternative to pirated commercial software. Now I just need to find some sweet Creative Commons movies...

by vw on Tuesday 7th of November 2006 at 02:23

fixed! thanks

by Seopher on Monday 6th of November 2006 at 14:09

typo in the content, the stats are stated differently in different places :)

by Kj on Monday 6th of November 2006 at 14:07