This weekend I was talking with a Panamanian friend who told me this way, categorically, that in his country Linux it does not circulate, it is not used.
It's incredible how he talked to me proudly about how there was a site where he downloaded all the software he needed as if it were original, with its licenses, its cracks, its serial numbers. He told me that Windows y OS X It is the only thing that is seen by his country, and therefore, it was impossible for him to use Linux.
I didn't try to convince him of anything. I just told him a little about the advantages it offers me GNU / Linux, far above, because it was useless to go into details and waste saliva, when in the end, it would not convince him of anything. For everything he said to her, he always had an excuse.
En Latinoamerica, this phenomenon of piracy is becoming more common, and apparently, there are no sufficiently effective measures to prevent it. My friend showed me around 150GB of updated Software, which you would have to buy for very high prices on the Internet.
It had everything from the earliest versions of MS Office, all editions of Adobe studio, and a myriad of applications that if you had acquired them legally, you would have had to spend more than $ 10, without exaggeration.
Incredibly he also showed me the isos of Linux Mint 13 in the version MATE y Cinnamon, which I had saved to test at some point. It caught my attention as a user and who supposedly does not know anything about Linux, have precisely linuxmint and not Ubuntu for example, but that's another matter.
It is curious how having very powerful free alternatives, they continue to resort to Proprietary Software. I'm not saying they have to use GNU / Linux, but at least about Windows, they could use open applications, since luckily, there are a large number of them, in almost all possible categories.
Piracy has become a way of life. And I don't judge anyone for it, because at some point I myself have acquired certain things in this way (Music for example), not to mention the time I was a user of Windows, although to be honest, I am not proud of it.
I don't think piracy will die out. I don't think there is any effective method that large industries can take to protect their intellectual property. Everything will be summarized to the conscience of each one as long as the need does not get in the way.
Very interesting article ...
Well, the same thing happens in Spain, although its use is widespread here, especially in the provinces of Castilla la Mancha (with its Molinux), Andalusia (Guadalinex) or Extremadura (Linex, but they left it and now use Debian directly).
But let's be sensible, we are one of the most Pirate countries in the world (we are on the US black list) and I have been given the same lengths, that Windows comes free with the PC (which is not going to be, that the manufacturer charges you the license in turn, and if it is a store that they assemble the PCs it may be a pirated copy) and that the MS Office, Photoshop, Antivirus (and less, because many use free ones like Avast which I myself recommend and I have its version for Android), etc.
I sometimes try to convince people to at least use free programs, least of all my friends who already call me mega heavy: p
The US blacklists are not worth even for the toilet paper, being there is the same as nothing except for them and whoever wants to give it credibility, there you go in and out according to some interest or threat.
If Spain is one of the most pirates, it will be for other things, but being on a gringo list will never be proof of anything.
That list is sweaty for me, I hardly even pirate music since most of the current music I don't like at all, except David Guetta or the latest album by The Offspring.
Like a lot of Anime and series that it is impossible for me to find for sale (and in the case of Anime, if it is not licensed in Spain, they can say mass, also they earn with manga and merchanting or whatever it is written) and many movies I wait for lower price or newspaper promos (a week ago I bought the Kingdom of Heaven for € 3.50, only the newspaper is worth € 2.50 on Sundays)
You're right, piracy in general cannot be eliminated. Cases of pirating software for me is already something normal since I have seen people like the one you described, only those that I know do not know about GNU / Linux or free software and pss well I have also pirated software and downloaded music illegally . But I think that some people pirate out of ignorance, because they do not know that there are free and free alternatives, and because there is not enough money to spend on software that is needed
Once I get to a company to "work" and they have their machines with W $ and they ask me to format them, I agree with pleasure and ask them for the W $ licenses, to which they replied: - You don't have your pirated discs of w $?
It happened to me!!! That's when I try to explain to them about Free Software, but they prefer to be illegal. I really don't understand it.
Another thing is that they do not quite understand the virus / antivirus issue. It sounds to them that if there is no antivirus installed then the system is insecure. There is no way!!!
150GB of Software? Is that just Debian? XD.
They are lined then.
Let's see maripilis, I partly agree with the article, but things are not so simple.
First: Generally, the richer countries are (higher per capita income) the less they pirate. It is not the same that a Dane spent 2000 euros on a Photoshop license than a Latin American.
Second: Piracy will always exist and companies tend to count any pirated copy as a sold copy. This is a mistake, people like the person you are talking about in this news, would not pay for software even if it cost one euro. What you have to have is an adequate value for money because people who pirate a game for 1 euro will always pirate it and that is not potential buyers, and it is a bitch, but it is like that. And of course in countries with lower GDP it is very normal for people to pirate, in the business world I in Spain have found real nonsense.
Third: The cracks and "tricks" programs usually go with a gift. I had a friend in jail for integrating a Trojan into a video game crack, see what a joke. I also try that people do not pirate, since it does not seem ethical to me, but if a person knows how to use a program, he will try to stick to it, I think that the only program of all the free software that I know, that can be used in a intuitive is "Libreoffice", because in all the others people are used to using other alternatives.
Fourth: There is a problem about the software that you mention, the software that is so expensive is usually professional, and you will tell me why the hell does Photoshop need a kid (or Autocad, or video retouching programs ...) to retouch a photo or make a photo montage. There are simpler alternatives, but they do not even have to be of interest to that individual.
Greetings, the subject is very interesting and indeed, the same has happened to me, I struggle a lot with people losing their fear of Free Software and being able to use quality software at a very low cost or investment. I am going to publish it in a group to which I belong, logically giving the credit and the link to this page, I hope I have no problem with this. Regards.
Piracy was what the English crown sponsored!
For specific cases, I do not know to what extent it is possible to use Free Software, but I have been using Linux for several years and so happy. I do not miss Windows or its programs, much less its viruses and problems (and this is said by a user who, despite everything, has rarely faced infections and others). There is no color.
I think that when it comes to computers, people tend to use the 'most popular', which by no means necessarily implies that it is simpler or better. Microsoft and its Windows - or Office - are the bread and butter in most educational and business environments, which is sad enough, but understandable. The recent history of technology and Microsoft's monopoly explain the current situation; should not surprise us.
And, well, although people could live perfectly using other OS's -free- and leaving those programs so expensive aside, the truth is that they prefer to throw away the known, opting for piracy if they do not have enough money and risking to catch a virus or a trojan with the famous cracks / keygens in between. There is still no clear "conscience" about what it means to appropriate a program without paying for it, but there is also no evidence of human rationality and a sense of proportionality.
What do you need a software as complex as Office to write a couple of sheets? "Yes, there is only MSO Word in the world and I am not willing to use anything else!" Many people don't bother to study alternatives like LibreOffice or Gimp; They use suites full of options, with a prohibitive price, to write a couple of paragraphs, ignoring that they already have the Wordpad installed as standard ...
And the companies -or the State- the same: they happen to invest a lot of money in programs, and it is not uncommon to still find companies that use Office 2003 or Windows 95 -true-. Then they complain that things are not going well ... I attribute it to misinformation and lack of concern for efficiency, but everyone there. In my case, if I download something, it is to "try" it, since I will most likely buy it later.
Some of my U classmates have mini-laptops with Suse's decal and when I ask them about it they say: I don't know, that was Linux but I asked them to install W7 (pirated obviously), so their whole pc is full of pirated software, even winrar there is 7zip, but it seems that people believe that if a crack is not necessary it is not worth using a program.
Haha, it's true. What gives me the most fun are the pirated antivirus. It's very common.
Hello everyone
My first comment, although I'm a regular blog reader (congratulations, it's excellent).
You see, I am Mexican but I have been living here in Panama for three years, and unfortunately what the article says is true, here everything is Windows, OSX is growing and there are few crazy people who use Linux. In fact there is a Fedora community, it organizes events and especially FLISOLs, but there is not much attendance.
Here people are too used to things, to Windows and pirated Office, even the IT support stores install all that, at a business level you don't even listen to MySQL, here everything is Oracle with PL / SQL, and smaller companies They have SQL Server with .NET (Even for the web).
It is unfortunate indeed, but it is the reality that is lived at least here. In the company where I work, I am fortunate to have an excellent boss (and who is also a company manager), who knows a lot about all this, and loves free software. All servers have been migrated to Linux, and we are developing systems to see if the complete migration of the equipment is possible.
Greetings!
Hello friend, I am also from Panama and it is true here in Panama very few people use gnu / linux systems, I would like to get in touch to start forming a community of people who use gnu / linux systems. I, for example, use debian 6.0 and I am very satisfied with how it works on my pc. and best of all debian is now so easy to use, sometimes it requires a bit of self-application but nothing fancy. Greetings from Panama.
Soon an article expressing my opinion.
This article is very interesting, there is not much to add, it simply reminds me that there are places where movies and music are sold with the complicity of the state because licenses are given for the sale of these, I do not have to say where it is, but exists. Gabriel García Márquez would have changed the name of "Macondo" to his imaginary town.
This article is very interesting, there is not much to add, it simply reminds me that there are places where movies and music are sold with the complicity of the state because licenses are given for the sale of these, I do not have to say where it is, but exists. Gabriel García Márquez would have changed the name of "Macondo" to his imaginary town.
The problem is that piracy is taken as a normal act. People believe that it is not a crime and it is not wrong either.
The mere fact of going down the street and seeing how without any inconvenience you see people selling everything from movies to soft, on a blanket on the sidewalk, with the sight of the complicit police, you realize that society leads you to that.
In my case I don't share it, I don't use illegal software (in fact I only use Linux at home) and I don't buy movies on the street.
No controls
It goes without saying that piracy benefits proprietary software companies enormously, the software is "free" for home users and then takes its toll on companies and the state. Nor is it news that "basic" users tend to be "conservative", I still do not understand people who continue to use Nero to burn or the "trick" nod32 as antivirus, the same with photoshop. Linux is still, although less now, a niche for "advanced" users; What can change the situation a bit is the appearance of smartphones and tablets: a "repository" of applications is no longer something "rare" as it was a few years ago. Cheers
In one way or another, piracy is a very present element in the life of almost any computer user (be it Windows, iOS or GNU / Linux). If we cut with the same pattern, the one with the pirated MS is just as illegal as the one that downloads movies and music. The law (or at least the Spanish anti-piracy law) contemplates equally the one that downloads for personal enjoyment and then deletes it as the one that does it to share with other people. Since the closure of Megaupload, the use of p2p programs has increased, and in this area Linux has a lot of torrent clients that work excellently. Piracy does not depend so much, in my opinion, on proprietary software, but on how you use your computer, even with Opensource.
Is breaking a software license the same as sharing a movie or song? I do not think so. It is not illegal to share videos and audios for no profit. It is illegal to sell copies of audiovisual material without the permission of those who have the rights. Software is another story because they sell you licenses. If you breach the terms of the contract it is considered illegal (they usually prohibit sharing).
As far as I can remember, no one has been fined for having commercial movies or music on the hard drive.
I'm not saying it's the same. What's more, for me it is not the same far from it. I believe that one of the priority uses of the Internet is the global sharing of entertainment and information. I'm just saying that according to the law, it is considered the same. Downloading and / or sharing files, whatever they may be, is illegal in Spain, although no one has ever been arrested or fined for it. Yes, those who sell pirated films on the street are fined, but that is already more a matter of the public image of the municipalities.
Put a link to the Spanish law that prohibits downloading / sharing movies, music and books. I have only read sentences that say otherwise. You should see the website of the expert intellectual property lawyer David Bravo. I leave you an example: http://www.filmica.com/david_bravo/archivos/010509.html
Look what the judge said in that case:
«… P2P networks, as mere data transmission networks between individual Internet users, do not violate any right protected by the Intellectual Property Law.
When a person downloads a file for their private use through P2P networks, which are legal, that same act is perfectly lawful, the judge reasons, as long as they do not make lucrative or collective use of it once the copy is obtained. But the mere obtaining of the copy is a perfectly legal act, he insists.
http://bloglanders.com/2012/01/09/leyes-antipirateria-parte-1-espana-hasta-la-ley-sinde/
As you can see, the download itself is not a crime, it only appears typified in the criminal code in the event that it infringes the author's intellectual property. Any work that is registered in the SGAE is included here (come on, Spanish music and films), but obviously everything depends on Copyright. So yes, you are right when you say that downloading and sharing is not a crime in itself, but depends on the content. Another thing is if you act or what is the judicial position when one of these cases comes into the hands of justice.
On the other hand, David Bravo's work in this area has done a lot for the free flow of information on the Internet.
The problem with piracy is that globally things don't turn out the same for everyone. Once I noticed how much it cost an American to buy a movie or a video game. For them it is much cheaper! Not only because their salaries are higher, but things have less taxes.
Beyond that, do not tell me that companies do not make money with piracy, not only does it help them to have a monopoly, but companies that sell hardware fill their pockets by selling computers and game consoles to Latin Americans, Africans and Asians, and if piracy didn't exist, these sectors would buy fewer consoles and most people wouldn't need to change their computers as often.
Ah I forgot to comment, in Argentina a lobby was created with companies such as Microsoft and Adobe that if you have a business they call you threatening you, that if you do not show them your computer (to see if there are illegal things) they will talk to the judge to give them an order etc. They called my dad for this, the funny thing is that my dad doesn't have a computer in his business.
With the salary that Latin Americans have, you either buy food or buy a license, and as long as that doesn't change, I'm going to hack and even share the pirated programs
This is how autocad for example or hysis. They ask me for them in college and they get a lot of money. The hysis before he was sued for monopoly cost like $ 15 a license!
As such, you also study Chemical Engineering, the Aspen or Hysis licenses almost literally cost an arm and a leg and half the industry works with them, It is not that the enormous work behind simulators is not recognized but they could make this more accessible kind of software for students.
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=156914.
I think someone from the Panamanian government read your article elav
Hahaha yes, I happened to read the article via RSS .. Uppss, I think more than one in Panama will want a price for my head xDDDD
Interesting reflections 😀 I use Linux for its potentialities 😀 but I keep pirating not software but multimedia content 😛
totally true, something like this happened to me with some friends at the university, all happy with their laptops with windows 7, (only mine runs arch among my classmates) and they happy with the jumps of the antivirus, and with the pirated programs and boast of find such or such a crack for x software, a boy even boasted of having copied the licenses of his school and what's more, as they teach us with windoze, the installed programs are also pirates !!!, they do not say anything for example about code: blocks (the one I use) or Mysql, and a long etc ...
a friend had on her laptop stickers of fedora, opensuse, ubuntu and .. Arch !! When I saw the arch sticker my eyes shone and I asked him if he used arch, he said no, that he used windows, but that those stickers had been given to him and they were beautiful (poser ¬¬) * cough cough * whatever, I I use GNU / Linux and I am happy not to use pirated software, (music, anime and English series are another story: P)
Cheers!! (^ _ ^)
I'm sure that being the only one using Arch among your colleagues who use Windows, far from feeling weird, you feel special, right?
I use Linux more for performance, but there isn't much to pay for is a +. And yes, it's true, around these parts they even sell pirated things in every shopping center. Or even on any street, you walk a bit and see someone selling Music CDs 😛
PS: For the record, there are things that I would undoubtedly pay for if I could, more for the means of payment than for the amount, but if I can't… to hack.
A question
The cracked programs and crackers exist for the software for sale, and by cracking it they make it free for users like the one mentioned in the entry, but if there are paid programs in linux, this piracy would also exist, right?
Cracked Linux programs
The point is that the linux user has a certain morality and a certain knowledge, which helps so that although in case of being very necessary the linux user will pay for the software or would do what any follower of stallman would do, look for a free alternative « and burn at the stake those infidels who have proprietary programs »XD.
There is something that fills my patience, more than the normal user pirates. Developers who pretend to profit by trading their proprietary software and in turn don't care if what they are using has been legitimately obtained. It is very contradictory. ¬.¬`
As they say, "Necessity has the face of a pooch"
pooch = Dog
Sinking ships is wrong
LOL !!!
That such.
Although I have been using Linux for almost 10 years, in all this time I have never missed anything from Windows and applications under this platform. Although sometimes I give courses on this platform (which I have virtualized in my laptop - and legal) I get angry to be running after the chronic versionitis of having the newest thing and paying for it. The truth is it is very expensive to have proprietary software and keep up with the software update. Although in principle I tried to use free software and as Windows OS, it turned out to be a bad idea since the system itself is the one that gives the fights, especially due to its security holes. That's why I made up my mind and suddenly I switched to linux (to suse linux, then ubuntu and currently Archlinux) and since then I have not had any problems. It is highly reliable, secure, and according to the distro at a reasonable update rate. It is true that piracy will never cease to exist, there will always be and no matter how many laws are invented (understand SOPAS and other hallucinated ones) it will not be resolved. What is the solution, I have no idea, but what I do know is that I have a reliable OS, with all the applications I need and without problems, but above all without the fights that Windows and its applications have.
Hi Elav. Thanks for your article, very interesting.
One point: the plural of "album" is "albums." 😉
Thanks for the correction 😀
A few months ago they commissioned me to do some web layout work, I had to talk for a while with the owner of the business on Skype, the truth was that he presumed that the guy made a lot of money, so to do the job faster, I asked him to buy me A license for the Adobe suite, to which he answered no, what better if I knew how to get pirated software, that I did. There the truth made me feel bad, and later he even called me a pirate, in the end with bluefish and seamonkey I solved everything. This is a clear example of how businessmen only know about Win32 and its piracy.