maemo.org - Talk - What is "piracy" and is it ever justified

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Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified

I wanted to buy angry birds to support the developer. i played level 1. The (insert random sware word) Ovi store would not let me purchase the level packs.

I turned away... I am not going to pirate this game but I lost interest. I am not going out of my way to pay someone 3 Euros ?!? where Nokia would then take one of it.

Piracy is GOOD for developers. I work for a software company - when I found out that someone in Russia cracked our licensing system I was smiling. This was free advertising in Russia for us. Eventually our developers closed the gap and the Russians are working on the next crack ;)

Not every pirated copy is a lost sale

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified

Quote:

Originally Posted by attila77 (Post 554291)

Let's not mix the terms 'business model' and 'copyright' here. There are plenty of open source developers who are paid full-time to work on Free software (for example most linux kernel developers). Whether a project is Open Source has no bearing on piracy/copyright - Free software would not exist without the same rules that make commercial software possible, it's just that developers making a living from them employ different business models depending whether it's OSS or a classic commercial app. The question is whether you play by the rules or you don't (=act first, rationalize later, regardless of agreements, laws, etc). Open Source does NOT change that in any way. It is just as illegal (even if it's rarely called piracy) for a company or other people to use Open Source Software in ways not compliant with their licenses.

The question though is whether these are 'loss leaders' supported by other arms of the commercial enterprise. Unless the entire revenue stream is funded in this way then it can't be entirely held but the point is still valid generally.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fargus (Post 554304)

I am a technical director of, amongst other things, a reasonably sized games company (80+ employees) so I think I know what is involved in the production. I also have another company producing commerical software. The aspects that are often not understood by the larger world is the QA and interaction requirements of commercial software - if your game crashes then you are rightly annoyed, but if your commercial software crashes and you loose business then the results are more important to you.

Commercial software requires graphic artists too if they have a GUI and also a serious amount of 'storyboarding' around the typical use of an application by end users.

Game software can also often get away with unsupported techniques (banging the metal) when commercial software has to play nicely and also work with upgrades in the underlying operating system too. game software also tends to be single use and then a sequel carries forward only library code if relevant. Backwards compatibility with the previous incarnation is not expected - would you expect to load the saved game file from a previous release? All of these issues have to be accoutned for.

Which is all fine and dandy.. you still haven't addressed my original question.

Why can I find (1000's arguably) excellent open source variants to "commercial" software... but maybe 10, if I'm lucky, proper and decent Open Sourced 3D games?

There's the difference. Difficulty be damned ( I don't want to get into a pissing match between cultures here.. personal bias and/or emotions are not the way to discuss something ) - what matters is what the end user can get.

I can get OSS that will replace my commercial needs... I can't get OSS software to replace my gaming needs.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrojas (Post 554303)

I could give it away, and that is fine. Or I could charge for it, and that is fine too. It is my decision, and the decision of the people that decide to use or not use my software.

The hardest for most developers to understand is that you have more choices than just those two. Sure, they are the simplest and most straightforward, but there are many many other business models to choose from.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified

Quote:

Originally Posted by 77h (Post 554316)

So if your company spent a large amount of time closing the gap and not working on something more innovative then that was good for the company? I really hope that you have a long hard think about this thought process if you ever make it into business yourself.

RE: The OVI store - Nokia provide a service for the developer (or not as it happens) so why should they not receive something? The amount is something for the publisher and Nokia to debate though. The point is though that Rovio are able to provide the software directly to you if they so wished.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified

Quote:

Originally Posted by attila77 (Post 554321)

I could give away a core of the software and charge for the premiums.
I could make it work at SaaS.
I could make it work in a client-server configuration, you needing to be connected to my net.
I could give it away and charge for the support.
I could make it transparent and sell it attached to a service/device, etc

Many options, but once again, if you develop something, isn't it yours to decide what to do with it?

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified

I am in Software Sales.
I have the data - The crack helped us gain more business in Russia - significantly more.

"f your company spent a large amount of time closing the gap and not working on something more innovative"

no large amount of time was necessary - i would of kept the hole open if it was my decision but the techies were eager to prove they are better then the hackers. we will see what comes out of it.

Don't make assumptions about other people or companies if you don't have the data.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fargus (Post 554314)

the other point you are missing here is that I can't see the average user in the street paying for a support contract for all software that they want to use. If you can find a method for ensuring that then I suspect the entire software development community would be beating a path to your door for the solution (which you would obviously provide for free)

Lets look at the support center of any major business.

How many users call Dell technical support with their computer? Now.. that's not the *only* method Dell uses to make money, since Dell charged you for the computer too, but they do make a *substantial* amount of money just from their technical support division.

What about Adobe? Don't they have a support division as well? Don't they sell support?

Companies will always like to pay other companies to do what they could hire someone to do themselves. That's just the way it is.. and the reason why I hate working as an SA at so many companies. "Did you open a ticket?".. WTF? Why am I here then? Get a damned high-schooler to sit at your desk here and phone Microsoft every time a blip appears on the screen if that's what you want. Don't pay me silly amounts of money to be a messenger boy to Microsoft's support. Etc.

But.. companies do. That's how they work. And a good number of users do.. however, when money is involved - users are more picky about it. Many users will instead grab their Linux-using relative to come fix their computer :D.

Unless you're just such an *awesome* developer that the software you write works 100% of the time in *all* environments without tweaking.. in which I applaud you tremendously... there is money to be made in support.

The question is - is it enough money for you? Most businesses don't settle for enough to live on and keep the business running.. they want as much money as possible with the least amount of work.. so they over-charge, and then triple-charge for the same thing, just because they can. I personally think that's ridiculous. I don't mind people making money.. I do mind people taking advantage of other people just because they can.

That's why I'll support Red Hat over Microsoft. I hated when Red Hat dropped their official "free" operating system because I felt it wasn't in the spirit of what linux represents. Over time I've grown less zealotry.. they do work with CentOS, which provides a free alternative to their main enterprise system - and they also do a lot of work with Fedora - which is free.. so they made up for it in alternative ways.

Microsoft on the other hand wants you to pay, and then pay again, and then pay some more.. and oh wait - did you pay last minute? Cuz.. it's a new minute.. you need to pay again..

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified

Quote:

Originally Posted by fatalsaint (Post 554319)

the point I was answering (as quoted) was that commercial software takes as long to develop and you were therefore saying that one should be compensated and not the other.

Part of the problem with games is that there are licencing costs and protection requirements involved. These are for games that are based on other media spins offs etceteras.

The other reason for not producing 3D games on an open source basis is possibly the lack of interest by developers. The other point is that most popular gaming platforms (volume) are not open sourced either as far as I am aware.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified

Quote:

Originally Posted by attila77 (Post 554321)

So feel free to share your ideas with us. I would love to find somethign that paid my bills but no one has shown me a viable method so far.

The original debate though is not whether one model should be adopted or not, it is about whether it is ever justified to break the intent of the payment model.