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In this exhaustive post I dedicated myself to debunk some common myths and misconceptions about free software and its relation to piracy. First, refute a very common confusion associated with free software and piracy, as if it were the same thing ... or more or less the same. Second, delve into a fact that we are often not aware of: how the use of pirated software undermines the development of "free" applications. |
Differences between free software and pirated software
La piracy implies the unauthorized or prohibited use of works covered by the laws of copyright in a way that violates any of the exclusive rights of the author, such as the right of reproduction or the right to make derivative works.
El FOSS, instead, it is any software that respects the freedom of users. According to the Free Software Foundation, It refers to the freedom of users to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the ; more precisely, it refers to four freedoms of software users: the freedom to use the program, for any purpose; to study the operation of the program, and adapt it to the needs; to distribute copies, thereby helping others and to improve the program and make the improvements public, so that the whole community benefits (for the second and final freedom mentioned, access to source code is a prerequisite).
The confusion? They are generally confused because it is believed, erroneously, that the defenders of free software transfer their principles to proprietary software, wanting to apply those freedoms. In other words, wanting to distribute, see the code, share, etc. proprietary software. This is false. Free software advocates would like all the software in the world to give users and developers those freedoms, that's true, but Instead of "pirating" proprietary software, they write, support, distribute, and use alternative software that does provide those freedoms. Thus, for example, as an alternative to Office they develop, support, distribute and use OpenOffice, and so with the rest of the programs: instead of IE, Firefox; instead of Windows or Mac, Linux… and the list goes on.
Piracy hurts free software
Software piracy is a fact in today's world where information is so easy to share and transfer. No matter what DRM measures are implemented by commercial software developers, no matter how advanced or draconian the new imposed "rules" are, someone will always find a way to create the "exception" ... which will eventually be it will become, like pirated software, the rule.
I have had to install copies of Windows on many people's compus with the CDs that they have provided me. I still haven't seen any original Windows box. Large-scale software piracy is not just a peculiar phenomenon trickling into our society, it is the norm..
I'm willing to bet a few bucks that several of you reading this blog are using pirated software right now; until I decided to try Linux, several years ago, I was very happy to do that myself ... basically out of ignorance, but also for other reasons. After all, who's going to watch closely enough to send the police banging on your doorstep because you've just downloaded the hacked Office 2007? But, When downloading a copy of the entire Adobe creative suite in an hour from your favorite torrent site, you don't have a full idea of all the implications that the use of pirated software could have on the software development community.
Pirates still help developers
It seems a somewhat common attitude, which I have seen among many people, to believe that piracy is a good way to "screw up" big shots like Adobe or Microsoft by avoiding the purchase of an expensive original copy. It's easy to understand that mentality, if you download the program illegally instead of paying the company for the right to use it, the "monopolies" lost a sale. Losing money to software monopolies is the best way to "sink" them. This, as we will see, is false.
Hit the big shots!
It is said out there that Microsoft President Bill Gates, in response to the huge number of pirated copies of Windows that began circulating in China in recent times (including in state agencies), said that Although I thought it was terrible that people in China pirated so much software, if they had to pirate any of them, I would definitely prefer it to be soft. from Microsoft.
It is interesting to think about the consequences of this. A commercial software company certainly prefers to have their software pirated rather than avoiding it entirely. Even though they make less money from it, people are still using THEIR software and not someone else's, which in the long run means more income. So, deep down, piracy doesn't make companies less money. This is especially true, for example, in the case of Microsoft: they are not interested, nor could they ever control, that each of us have a genuine copy of Windows or Office (the two products that give you the most money) in home, but they are interested in us having them and adopting them as the only way to use a computer. Their business is to sell to large companies and States, areas in which they can control the use of original copies.
But, building "standards" sometimes works the other way (from work to home). Adobe products are a good example, especially Photoshop. If you look in the newspaper for job ads in the field of graphic design, illustrations, logos, or something like that, it is very likely that you have noticed that they ask for designers with experience in the use of Adobe Photoshop and / or Illustrator. Both Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash are all industry standard programs. So even if something better came along, people would still use Adobe, because it is the "norm" in the industry.
Most of the designers I know use pirated versions of Photoshop at home because they cannot afford the original version, and because it is what they use on the facu or at work. I showed some of them the benefits of using the GIMP instead, and the answer was the total rejection of GIMP. Its interface was strange to them, they did not perceive the benefits of GIMP over Photoshop, which certainly has them and many, but above all, GIMP wasn't even cheaper than a pirated version of Photoshop! Finally, as time passed, some of them were forced to buy the original version of Photoshop to avoid problems.
The lesson is that even if you haven't paid to use the software yet, the company may have already sold it to you anyway.. In one way or another, you contribute, without realizing it, to the maintenance of industry standards, and then you are halfway to promoting that software without having received a weight for it..
For the same reason, Microsoft Windows owns 90% of the desktop market. It's what most people are used to wearing. Microsoft doesn't want to lose money through piracy, but in the long run, they compensate by "building standards" in the marketplace, with the support of hackers and legitimate users.
Who is losing?
We have all heard the lament of many software companies arguing the disadvantages of using pirated software, but even though they use some valid arguments, they are often just arguments that are in their best interest. In general, they state that pirated software hurts the global economy, with consequent job losses; They also mention that the money of legitimate users has to go to combat piracy instead of being used to improve the software, and finally, they argue that pirated software often involves the distribution of defective or virus-laden copies.
While the validity of this last point is certainly very important, there are other less documented consequences that are especially relevant to Free Software proponents.
Legitimate users are without a doubt the losers: prices have risen due to piracy (or, at least, that's the excuse many companies used), leading legitimate customers to pay more to use the same product; effectively, this means that they "compensate" what pirated software users do not pay.
What do Free Software developers say about all this?
Piracy of proprietary software also has an often invisible impact on free software developers. Free software, although it can provide income to the companies that develop, distribute or support it, does not have as its main objective the generation of income, but the public interest: the support of the users of free software is the vital nerve of the community. Therefore, if someone decides to download a "trout" copy of MS Office 2007 instead of OpenOffice.org, the OOo developers have lost a user, an advocate, and possibly a contributor. In other words, they lose much more than a mere 'customer', a 'market share' or a 'potential (future) or actual (present) profit'.
Even the spread of "small versions" of proprietary software has an impact on the free software movement. If you're still using Photoshop, you're unknowingly "marketing" it, just for the sake of using it. This is not something you have to "punish yourself every night" for, but it is worth mentioning and "making it visible", because it is a fact that often goes unnoticed. If many users use software from a few companies, you are giving them the opportunity to impose their dominance in the industry.
A good example of this is Flash. Flash is still a closed format, and the only way that flash videos and applications can be developed / played "decently" is with Adobe software. Basically Adobe has created a monopoly, and there are almost no alternatives to it. If you develop something with Adobe Flash, be it paid or pirated, you are going to be supporting Adobe and tightening its hold on this "standard" in the industry. This is worth clarifying, it has nothing to do with the quality of the software. Flash and PDFs, two of Adobe's "heavy" products, which built standards on the web, have been proven numerous times to be the source of the largest number of vulnerabilities in Windows. It also has nothing to do with the lack of alternatives: In the case of Flash now, luckily, there is HTML5 (although its adoption will take several years), and in the case of PDFs, we have a very little known DJVU free alternative but that has been shown to be better (the files are smaller and of better quality) than PDFs.
The moral is that anyone who wants to promote the use of free software should have no interest in using pirated software, and if you really want to 'screw' monopolies, don't use pirated copies of their software, use free software and hit them where in it seriously hurts them: not just their pocketbook but their spine, their credibility and the possibility of creating, through it, industry standards. That would be something that would really hurt them. That is also the reason why Microsoft, for example, will never give Office support for free standards (ODF). Doing so would undermine the main basis for Office's success: the widespread adoption of Microsoft's closed formats.
Where do I get "free" alternatives to the "proprietary" programs I use daily?
- OSalt: http://www.osalt.com/
- Freealts: http://www.freealts.com/
- AlternativeTo: http://alternativeto.net/
I don `t believe. First, illegal copying (saying piracy seems too much to me) is a culture. I do medical informatics and I have had the opportunity to see the pcs of, for example, a famous plastic surgeon and a prominent ophthalmologist, both millionaires. They both called me to remove the little sign that says "you could be the victim of a software counterfeit." They didn't want to legalize the copy, they wanted to keep using it for free.
On the other hand, the free software user is usually a demanding and militant user. It is from another tribe, from another culture. If by some miracle gnu linux were privatized, we would go en masse to BSD, or another project that respects user freedom. I do not know cases of free software that have been privatized. That does not exist. Many Win users came, sniffed the free software, and at the first difficulty took the red pill to return to the Matrix. But we'll see you here. We have come for something.
And finally, the countries with the most free software culture are, precisely, those that we regard as benchmarks in terms of purchasing power. Sweden, Norway, Canada ... no, it's not a matter of money. In fact, there are proportionally many more free software users who made donations to maintain the development of their favorite softs (I use WordPress and OpenEMR, for example), than Win users who have paid for the copy they are using on their own. . Proportionally, Linux users put more money, and voluntarily.
Yes sir.
Let them tell Microsoft, which thanks to piracy became the hateful standard that it is today, with its disgusting .doc among other drawbacks.
That they ask Mr. Bill Gates, that if it were not for piracy, there would be many fewer who would have windows: -S
Hello, I like the analysis that is done on free software and pirates, the truth was that I did not have the knowledge of this, piracy will never end, you will always see people who manage it.