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Forums › Microsoft Windows › Happy Anti-Piracy day! Arrrgh! Now we're all criminals ;)


208 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 1


Topic # 27329 22-Oct-2008 14:02

Like many others out there, my initial foray into the wonders of all that is computers was my first pirated copy of Microsoft DOS 3.1 (then 3.11, then 95, 98, etc). This was back-in-the-day before I could even conceive of the notion of piracy (unless you count "pirates & indians")
Like any good drug-dealer, the first one's always "free" (or at least turn a blind eye to it rampant use in order to create the market)

Fast-Forward to today, and our dealer's painting us all as criminals, kiddie-fiddlers & torturers of small furry animals

So! I put it to you thus: follow Redmond's insistence and keep you software licences legal; replace your "pirated software" with LEGALLY FREE GNU software.

Don't know where to start? Head over to:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Free_software
* http://www.osalt.com (to find out what to replace with what)

All my software is now 100% legal, and it only cost me bandwidth.

Not a bad trade...


[Moderator (ND): Edited to proper company names. Please use in future.]




FLOSS'er

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355 posts

Ultimate Geek


  Reply # 172791 22-Oct-2008 15:17
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ThePirateBay posted a mug shot of younger Bill Gates in response on their website. It's true, very soon free software will overtake bloated proprietary. I like this idea that open source is a kind of collaboration of the worlds best and brightest working together to create something that benefits everyone.

8027 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 387

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  Reply # 173028 23-Oct-2008 12:30
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People prioritize differently, money is more valuable than time to some people and vice versa.  Not everyone weighs the price factor vs. the user experience factor in the same way.

For example I prefer to use Beyond Compare ($30 USD) over any of the freeware alternatives I've tried (WinMerge, DiffMerge etc) however on the other hand I prefer 7zip over WinZip or WinRar.

Exclusively using only paid software or only free software is pretty narrow minded imo.

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