Mark Derricutt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 10/05/2001 14:17:35:
>
>I would say it makes Open Source more acceptable. Theft is theft.
>
>--On Thursday, 10 May 2001 11:09 a.m. +1000 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>wrote:
>
>> Nothing ever makes piracy understandable.
>>>> I am not advocating it BUT these prices make SW piracy
>>>> understandable.
I think the main problem is that a lot of people don't seem bothered at
all by the legal aspects of piracy. Instead they see it as an ethical
problem... and obviously don't have any problem with the ethics of
using software they never payed for. If you ignore the legality of it,
there are a lot of ways to justify pirating any software. Some of the
commonly used arguments are "I can't afford it, but others will pay"
and "I'd never BUY it, so they're not losing anything if I pirate it".
Personally, I always chuckle when I hear these arguments. But I also
laugh when I hear the software industry bitching about piracy costing
billions of dollars in lost revenue. 95% of software theft is done by
people who wouldn't shell out for the software anyway, so no loss of
revenue. The only real effect that piracy has on income is to cause
the industry is to waste incredible amounts of money on (ultimately
fruitless) attempts to stop theft. And who foots the bill for that?
Us, the consumers.
There will never be a truly fool-proof way to prevent piracy, but there
are ways to prevent it from having a serious impact. Pricing things
within the reach of the people who want to use it is one method. If
your potential user base is primarily spotty-faced teens, then selling
something for US$500 is going to cause a LOT of piracy and very little
revenue, but if you price it at US$50 then you get a lot more revenue
and less piracy.
The same holds for Delphi, except that the percentage of spotty-faced
teens in the user base is significantly lower than, for example, Quake3.
But piracy is a practice that's not limited to the young, or the
poor, or... etc. By pricing D6 (and presumably BCB6 when it's
released) above the level that the average home user can afford, even
at a stretch, I think Borland is shooting themselves in the foot.
And don't even talk to me about the 'standard' version. Pro is the
minimum I'll even consider using.
Isn't it a good thing for me that BCB is the development environment I
use at work? :)
--
Corey Murtagh
The Electric Monk
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur!"
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