What's your opinion about Macwarez?!

The only software I get a digital five-finger discount for is the very expensive stuff. I am 16 years old, have a job that pays slightly higher than minium wage, and have to pay for my college education by myself. Anything over $100 is just too damn expensive for me (and for any software too, but that is a whole other thread:rolleyes: ). I have been considering many different jobs (all of which concern software in some way) and cannot afford to buy a six-hundred dollar copy of photoshop, or 1500 dollars of lightwave (? on the price), just to see if it is something I would like do spend the rest of my life doing. I was very lucky this past summer and got to work with some software in values upward of 10000 dollars (I was an 'engineering aid' for the government) this is some excellent software that I would have never gotten to use before, this has given me a jump start on college, getting to use this software that no one else has used. Big businesses, the software companies, and the government should run more programs like this, to encourage future users, students, and sciencists to use and learn this/their software. Until software companies start offering LARGE discounts to high school students (I know they offer them to college, but I'm not in college am I, plus they aren't very big discounts) or VERY functional demos I will have to continue using 'warez'. When I land that cushy high-paying job, yes I plan to buy my software, but until that day who knows.:confused:


This is my longest post ever, thanks for hearing me out:D It felt good to rant:cool:
 
I fotgot to mention I'm not going to pay 300 dollars for a word processor!! That is stupid! I just get it from my relative;) Some of those "scaled down" apps like elements don't have enough of the real function of the products for me to determine whither or not it is a good product, and many of them are buggy, POS, underthoughts created by the companies to get the money out of the cheap bastards who want photoshop, but don't want to pay for it or 'steal' it. Maybe I'll start my own software company, with reasonable prices (nothing over 100 dollars) and high funtionality (kinda like graphic converter, only better). Thats how I will make my millions....:D

:rolleyes:
 
Great, cheap word-processor: AppleWorks. What, $70? And you get spreadsheet software and the ability to read and write word/excel documents.

Great, cheap alternative to PhotoShop: GIMP. It's free, if you compile it yourself. No, it's not PhotoShop, but it does what it advertises and it's cheap. What feature in PhotoShop do you absolutely need that is preventing you from using a cheaper alternative?

PhotoShop is $609.00 new. $149.00 Upgrade. If I own PhotoShop 3 or 4, I would have no problem paying $149.00 to get PhotoShop 6 legally. If I don't own any copy of PhotoShop, I'd go for an "Adobe Collection."

Adobe offers some great package pricing on "Collections" -- for example, PhotoShop, Illustrator, GoLive and LiveMotion can all be had for $1000. That's a DAMN good deal, which goes back to my point about software companies offering good deals to try and help you out. I don't know how it is outside the US, but here in the states, any high school student can make $1000 in 4-5 months mowing lawns. I've done it -- it's beneath flipping burgers, I'll say that, but it's not impossible, plus it gives you a workout and gets your ass outside away from the computer for a while.

I think the resounding cry I keep hearing here is a lot of impatient people who want the best software right now and don't want to have to pay for it -- and I keep hearing, "Hey, I'm just testing it out until I can afford it!" -- Bullsh**. I've worked for a few graphic arts companies, and if you've never paid for it or been able to obtain it illegally, you won't pay for it given the chance. I worked for a place that had nothing but illegally-acquired software. The company made a LOT of money. So much they could have bought PhotoShop for each machine there TWICE. Did they? No... it was too easy to get it for free -- you could have it in a matter of hours instead of waiting for it to be shipped for a week or more.

To all you who say that you're just testing it until you can afford it, can we all assume here that once you DO have $600 in your pocket that you'll spend it on PhotoShop? Yeah, right... more like junk food, some Nintendo games and a sack of weed. Gimme a break!
 
Thank you, testuser. Theft IS a very juvenile act. Software piracy/theft is no different. Half of these people who download PhotoShop, Illustrator, InDesign, QuarkXPress, GoLive, LiveMotion, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Office X, Cubase, LightWave, Maya, Poser, Painter, PageMaker, unreleased beta versions and anything else don't use them -- it's just the "thrill" factor of downloading the programs.

Here's a challenge to those people who STILL think stealing software is ok because they're learning the software and plan to buy it once they get the money (this means you, AppleWatcher and JohnnyV): Let's see some JPEGs or something you've created since you've downloaded, evaluated and found out how to use PhotoShop, or, for that matter, anything else. Let's see something to back up the fact that you're actually using the software to produce something worthwhile, and the software isn't just sitting on your hard drive so you can say, "Look at me! I've got the NEWEST PHOTOSHOP!" Let's see it. You've made some (ahem) SOMEWHAT convincing statements in favor of piracy, but you've produced absolutely nothing to back yourselves up when you say you're learning the software. Anything. A work-in-progress. Something you've fiddled with. ANYTHING.
 
Great, cheap word-processor: AppleWorks. What, $70? And you get spreadsheet software and the ability to read and write word/excel documents. Great, cheap alternative to PhotoShop: GIMP. It's free, if you compile it yourself. No, it's not PhotoShop, but it does what it advertises and it's cheap. What feature in PhotoShop do you absolutely need that is preventing you from using a cheaper alternative?
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I'm sorry ElDiablo but I can't agree with that. AppleWorks simply disappears if you compare it with Microsoft Word, especially v. X, and I think everyone would agree. And about the Gimp:
It's much, much slower than Photoshop, there are very less filters for the GIMP, and even if you want to print a document you have to download several plugins which is very much work for such a simple thing.

And if you want to know what I've made with Photoshop:

I've made five fullcolour covers for my schoolpaper. :D:D:D:p

AppleWatcher
 
Originally posted by AppleWatcher
I'm sorry ElDiablo but I can't agree with that. AppleWorks simply disappears if you compare it with Microsoft Word, especially v. X, and I think everyone would agree. And about the Gimp:
It's much, much slower than Photoshop, there are very less filters for the GIMP, and even if you want to print a document you have to download several plugins which is very much work for such a simple thing.
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What's in Word that's preventing you from using AppleWorks? You type, you bold-ify some stuff, you italicize some stuff, you underline some stuff... you print. You import a JPEG graphic and place it. All possible with AppleWorks. What exactly does Word do that AppleWorks doesn't? You're still helping me believe that you're using Word just because it's big and powerful and cool instead of using it to really write a paper or something... show me something you've done in Word that couldn't have been done in AppleWorks.

And if you want to know what I've made with Photoshop:

I've made five fullcolour covers for my schoolpaper. :D:D:D:p
Click to expand...

...care to provide an example? Let's see SOMETHING. Surely as a graphic artist designing stuff with top-dollar software packages you've got some sort of backup or previous version of some artistic thing you've created that'll scream "PhotoShop work! Amazing use of color and design! Couldn't have been done with anything less than PhotoShop!" when we see it.
 
I'm sorry ElDiablo but I can't agree with that. AppleWorks simply disappears if you compare it with Microsoft Word, especially v. X, and I think everyone would agree. And about the Gimp:
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I have to disagree with you here.

Appleworks is fine for most people. I don't know about you, but all I need it for is writing letters and resumes and that kind of stuff. It also opens word documents. Office is way more than I need.

I'm sorry if I'm repeating things that have been said already (I've been checking in from time to time), but there is a mentality that you have to have the biggest most powerful apps, no matter what you need them for. this applies to hardware as well. People get talked into buying a machine with all kinds of slots and extra stuff that they don't need, and most of the time they actually shell out big money for it. But, with software it's worse because you can get it without paying for it.

You don't need Maya to make icons. You don't need Word to write a letter.
 
Eesh - the sticky warez situation.

Yes, programmers need to get paid for their work. Yes, warez is stealing.

Here is the conundrum - if one wants to be a professional that uses software such as Photoshop (to keep with the example) - one must know how to use it. It's a requirement - no company is going to care how good you are at GIMP, Paint Shop Pro, or any other software program - they require you be proficient in photoshop.

It's an ironic situation for many people who need to 'steal' the tools first to learn how to use them in order to make the money needed to buy the tools.

I'm currently in the same boat with Quark - many of the places I'm applying to for jobs require Quark competency. Now do I take the risk of buying a $X00 dollar program to *maybe* get a job that might make me back that $X00 dollars in 2 months if I'm lucky? That's not a rhetorical question - I haven't pirated yet, but I could see how doing so could be almost irresistably tempting. Is it okay to steal to feed your family? Especially if you were pretty sure you wouldn't get caught, especially if 'everyone does it', especially if you really do plan to pay for the "bread" once you can afford it... Yeah, it's a crime, and a moral failing and *wrong* but *I* for one will not be the first to throw stones for such an understandable moral failing.

Then there's always "MS has screwed me so now I'm screwing MS" feeling that you get specifically with Big Bill. - which is neither here nor there - the "stealing from a crook" feeling is an entirely different beast and one best left to the Utilitarian vs. Absolutist moral arguments ever since Locke and Kant started duking it out. I don't want to get into it - I don't think I'll run Office on my Mac even if I *could* get it for free, legally.
 
1) Warez is necesary.
2) If you use warez, don´t shout it out loud as if you were proud of it.
3) It´s a good idea that companies had a personal edition of their programs, 10 times cheaper than the comercial version. This edition would be just for personal use.
 
OK, maybe you guys are right, but for me it's the way of working. Word works a lot better for me than AppleWorks.

And about my schoolpaper: I'll show something when it's online.
It'll be online soon (you may download it yourself), they're kinda big! ;)

AppleWatcher
 
I agree with this:

3) It´s a good idea that companies had a personal edition of their programs, 10 times cheaper than the comercial version. This edition would be just for personal use.
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AppleWatcher
 
What I would like to see (I know some will hate this.) Is more of subscription based licensing for software. There's has always been the saying "It takes money to make money." This is totally true with computers. The big probem is the initial cost. If you want to start a business in graphics especially, It's not out of the question to need $3000+ worth of software, just to get started. I would love to see that initial cost come down. Wouldn't it be nice to pay $12 a month for Photoshop instead of $600 initially and $140 for each upgrade? It certainly wouldn't be as nice as getting it for free, but better than paying hundreds up front and not using it. I would love to see people paying what the software is worth to them, and I think in the current system that isn't the case. I think all it takes is one underdog company to go to this system. make people say: We can try this product without having to pay a fortune just to see if it's any good.

I know this has gotten shot down in the past, but it seems to me that it should be able to work. Some comapnies already do this, but they still have an insane cost when you first get the software (Maya for one.)
 
Originally posted by Boyko
Eesh - the sticky warez situation.

Yes, programmers need to get paid for their work. Yes, warez is stealing.

Here is the conundrum - if one wants to be a professional that uses software such as Photoshop (to keep with the example) - one must know how to use it. It's a requirement - no company is going to care how good you are at GIMP, Paint Shop Pro, or any other software program - they require you be proficient in photoshop.

It's an ironic situation for many people who need to 'steal' the tools first to learn how to use them in order to make the money needed to buy the tools.

I'm currently in the same boat with Quark - many of the places I'm applying to for jobs require Quark competency. Now do I take the risk of buying a $X00 dollar program to *maybe* get a job that might make me back that $X00 dollars in 2 months if I'm lucky? That's not a rhetorical question - I haven't pirated yet, but I could see how doing so could be almost irresistably tempting. Is it okay to steal to feed your family? Especially if you were pretty sure you wouldn't get caught, especially if 'everyone does it', especially if you really do plan to pay for the "bread" once you can afford it... Yeah, it's a crime, and a moral failing and *wrong* but *I* for one will not be the first to throw stones for such an understandable moral failing.

Then there's always "MS has screwed me so now I'm screwing MS" feeling that you get specifically with Big Bill. - which is neither here nor there - the "stealing from a crook" feeling is an entirely different beast and one best left to the Utilitarian vs. Absolutist moral arguments ever since Locke and Kant started duking it out. I don't want to get into it - I don't think I'll run Office on my Mac even if I *could* get it for free, legally.
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No, you don't steal Quark so you can learn Quark. Does someone who is clueless about the engine of a car apply for an auto mechanic position?

The answer is you spend some money on a well-respected learning course. You don't need to own (own in the sense of having a program at home) Quark in order to work in Quark at work. You take a course, you learn it, you apply for the job. Just like any other job in the world -- you take courses to learn what you need to know. Sure, someone could learn auto mechanics at home -- but do you think they'd even begin to try to justify stealing a car in order to learn on it?

There are PLENTY of ways to become proficient in a program without having to steal or even own a license to the program. You're just looking at the easy, illegal way out -- much like, "Why should I pay for my education when I could just as easily steal it and teach myself?" Do you steal gardening books to learn how to garden? Even those $150 ridiculously-priced, glossy, 4-color gardening dictionaries? No, you buy the cheaper book. Or you take a course at your local Home Depot. Do you steal an ethernet hub and some cabling to learn how to connect the wires of a network? No, you go to ITT and take a course. Or buy a book. Or something. Anything other than stealing.

I have no doubt in my mind that once these people, who claim to be stealing only to learn them then will buy the programs, start their own businesses or get into corporate America (or whatever country) where they're working hard for money -- they'll have a MUCH different view on theft and piracy. Right now it doesn't impact them. I'm sure the two 15 year olds in favor of piracy here would be VERY pissed off if they worked REALLY, REALLY hard on a paper for class (in a pirated copy of Word, no doubt!) and had the text of their paper stolen by another student and turned in as the other student's own work... now, if the student offered to BUY a copy of the paper, I'm sure they'd be thinking yet a third way... think about it. These people aren't putting themselves in others' shoes and trying to look at anything from a different perspective -- that's called narrow-mindedness. Just because you feel one way and agree with a certain set of beliefs doesn't mean you can't see merit in the opposing argument. People who believe one thing and one thing only and think every other way of thinking is wrong are narrow-minded. Period. How can you say piracy is ok when that's all you've known? Have you ever paid for a piece of software? Or written some code and had it stolen by someone? I'll bet the answer is no, and until you experience or at least give the "other side" a try, it's feeble to try and come up with any GOOD arguments in favor of what you believe.
 
Originally posted by ElDiabloConCaca


No, you don't steal Quark so you can learn Quark. Does someone who is clueless about the engine of a car apply for an auto mechanic position?

The answer is you spend some money on a well-respected learning course.
Click to expand...

Sadly, the problem with that is simple - the issue there is not just money (I'm sure that a well-respected learning course costs *more* than a professional program) it's also time. My problem is not that theft is justified, but that compared to the alternative, makes a compelling *if immoral* option.

Furthermore, most "well respected learning courses" come in two flavors: idiot-simple, and impossibly hard. I majored in Computer Science but left the program after realizing most of the teachers were idiots, and taught myself all I needed to know about programming myself.



You don't need to own (own in the sense of having a program at home) Quark in order to work in Quark at work. You take a course, you learn it, you apply for the job.
Click to expand...

Most of the courses, also, are designed for people who already have jobs - and for employers that need to up thier skills - the costs are prohibitive for someone who is trying to *find* a job.


Just like any other job in the world -- you take courses to learn what you need to know. Sure, someone could learn auto mechanics at home -- but do you think they'd even begin to try to justify stealing a car in order to learn on it?
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Again, I'm not trying to *justify* piracy, I am trying to *rationalize* it. Why do people pirate, yes, there's the thrill, there's the fact that you get something for nothing, and there's the people who want to play more games than they can afford - but here's another option that's more morally grey. There's also the fact that piracy is not zero-sum theft - a pirate "pirates" a program, he doesn't "steal" it. When a tangible object is stolen, someone is deprived of that posession. Conversely, when a "pirating" occurs, the origional owner still has possession of the object. - a very convincing argument as to why piracy should be treated in a different moral bracket as regular theft - and why people who wouldn't think of shoplifting pirate.


I have no doubt in my mind that once these people, who claim to be stealing only to learn them then will buy the programs, start their own businesses or get into corporate America (or whatever country) where they're working hard for money -- they'll have a MUCH different view on theft and piracy.
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From practical experience working in Corporate America, I very much doubt it. Enron had a rather liberal policy regarding theft, tobacco companies have a rather liberal policy regarding negligent homicide.

How can you say piracy is ok when that's all you've known? Have you ever paid for a piece of software? Or written some code and had it stolen by someone?
I'll bet the answer is no, and until you experience or at least give the "other side" a try, it's feeble to try and come up with any GOOD arguments in favor of what you believe.
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I payed $95 dollars for the Windows98 upgrade when it came out. It hosed my system. I payed $25 dollars for Windows98SE to upgrade Windows98 to fix the bugs in W98 that W95 was supposed to fix. I payed $50 for Visual J++ Academic edition, etc, etc... the prohibitive cost of software is one of the reasons I'm making the switch to Mac

I've written code for classes - no, it's never been stolen from me. I do Javascript/HTML coding at work, and although I've never had any code stolen from me yet, I don't think I'd particularly mind (or my employers, for that matter.) People who actually write computer code and make a profit off of it are a measley, small, insigificant portion of the people on the planet that use computers, and unfortunately, telling people to follow the golden rule "how would you feel if it happened to you" is problomatic seeing as A) many are indifferent, and B) Many more see it as a victimless crime. C) Many feel (in the case of Microsoft only) that they deserve it somehow.

Brian.
 
well. It's a long way reading all that posts.
For a long time I've been searching warez, knowing a the end every path to have the right version of the right tool to work with.
Is it bad ? Well, it's illegal, for sure.
I'm not a geek, my work isn't focused on computers. I don't feel in my flesh the pain of the poor developer. I'am a researcher, kind of "intellectual", as we say in french. I'm never paid for my "intellectual property". I don't cry about it.

I use computers to enhanced my own productivity. example : I need a contact and diary manager. I look for the best I can use. I have to pay for ? No, because I can't. I need Word, because my all working community use it, on both Windows and MacOS. Will I pay for it ? No.
Should I use something else than Illustrator to build my maps ? May be, but it's not good enough.

Office is now a leader because thousands of people used illegal copies of it for years. That's how they (and Adobe, and Macromedia, and others) became leaders : because everyone was using their products.

Of course, my home computer works differently than my office computers. It's because I improved "illegal copies" of software that my office finally bought them. But I have to try and deal with them before I advise for it. My home computer is still free of any paid license, except some shareware I respect a lot. But on the other hand, I spend a lot of my "business training budget" to get software training courses. Finally, the Linux economic model is the closed one to my own ideology. If computers are made to help industry leaders owning such human general goods as the "Vinci codex", for instance, I think I gotta fight it.

Computer industry is a total immature industry. It most of the times sells products that should not even have get out of a garbage. You can't pay for that. I pay for my database developer, but he is right to me when I need him. How can I imagine spending 1000€ for a soft just to have the right to call a fucking expensive and unefficient hotline ? No, stop kidding. If your product is good, companies will buy it, and buy training courses to use it. If they have to buy it only because of a monopolistic position, the product will be pirated. That's life, honey. It's called liberalism ! If you're a small and unknown developer and you're product is really the best, warez will be the best marketing plan you never had to get known. That's capitalism !
And if marginal individuals want to get the most of their computers to be free and fast and good, they will use warez. This is called anarchy ! The magnificent sister of liberalism. That's the way it works.
 
one day eveybody's child will know how to program and computers will be so advanced that uying software would be out of the question, that day microsoft will die.


think about it... every new genration knows moe about the computer as the old one, if this goes on , the above statement will hold true for all software coders (for a proffesion)

P.S. everything will be running linux/posix os aka darwin.
 
I'm a college sophomore who used to pirate software (usually shareware, and that's the worst thing to pirate) fairly frequently with not too many moral objections. But before I went to college, I bought my own iMac with my own money and decided that because of how easy it is to pirate software at college, I would like to keep it 'clean.'

Last semester I bought my first and only shareware program, a $15 music notation program called Melody Assistant. Not only did it enable some features that I wouldn't have had without registering (like, say, the ability to actually print out scores so I could turn in my assignments ;)), I found that it felt great to pay for software just because I felt I genuinely needed it. That's one of the three pieces of software I've bought since I've been at college. The other two have been Mac OS X and Diablo II. I have no illegal software on my hard drive, and I'm damned proud of it.

Instead I go to VersionTracker almost daily and pick up anything that says "Free" in the License column and looks useful. The thrill of finding a great piece of software that's legitimately free probably just about matches that of finding Photoshop 7 on your Carracho server, or whatever. Try it sometime. I can suggest some of the replacements I've found, under Mac OS X (I recently trashed my Mac OS 9 applications so I'll have even less incentive to boot back into that antiquated OS anymore):

Word Processor: Okito Composer. Nice, Cocoa-fied, does the job. Not compatible with Word, I think. Will you live? Or, if you want to play with the big boys, LaTeX via teTeX and TeXShop. I love LaTeX and use it for any paper I have to write that's longer than a page.

Graphics: I'm not artsy, so the GIMP satisfies all my graphic creation needs. But for the manipulation I do on the pictures for my website, I won't even pay $30 for GraphicConverter when I can instead use ToyViewer and PixelNHance for free. And speaking of web sites...

Web site creation: Straight HTML, in BBEdit Lite. And since I'm hosting using Mac OS X I can even make my own CGI scripts (in Python, also free).

Programming: As above, Python mostly. But if I'm not mistaken, you can do a lot just with Mac OS X... aren't Java and Perl and C already implemented? And those developer tools... whew. Screw CodeWarrior. If I want to do some serious programming I'll reach for Project Builder and learn from there.

Web browsing: IE 5.0. Sigh. OmniWeb is too slow for me, although I use it to access HTML manuals, etc, on my disk. Opera sucks ass on OS X. iCab is a joke. Right now I'm putting my hopes on Chimera... cross yer fingers.

Music: Melody Assistant, as above. Kicks ass, takes names, runs on OS X, cheap as dirt. Also Csound. Wow, I can't wait to learn how to use Csound.

And there you have it, and I've never for a moment missed Office, Photoshop, anything. I even threw away AppleWorks.

The only things of dubious morality on my hard drive are some music videos, some episodes of Sealab 2021 that I can't watch because RealPlayer doesn't exist for OS X, and some songs that (a) aren't available commercially, (b) are on CD's I would never buy, (c) are on albums I would buy if I could find them. Not that I'm looking too hard. Sigh. No one's perfect.

Just wanted to make my absolute first post here a doozy, and hopefully try to convince some people to give up warez. It really is very gratifying.

-The Valrus
 
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