All those running pirated Windows XP - read this!

[sodcha0s]

And the bugfixes are free, MS released IE 6 and SP6a for NT which is nearly 7 years old.

Uhhh, IE IS free. NT is a corporate networking OS (a very poor one I might add) and MS had little choice but to give away the update for it. If they would have tried to charge for it they would have lost millions, billions perhaps. Not to mention their most valued goal, majority market share.

Your logic (or lack of logic) is incredible. By your logic, if I don't like the way you do things I can steal money from you. If I think you are bad, and in my opinion you have wronged me, that entitles me to take what I can from you. The old "two wrongs make a right" argument. It didn't work when you were 3 years old, and it doesn't work now.

Tell me where exactly I said it was right to steal? If you had read all of my posts you would have noticed I said it isn't right. The only thing I said even close to that is that I don't care if somebody burns a copy for themselves. I also said the real problem is companies buying one copy for hundreds of computers, without purchasing additional licenses. You haven't come up with one thing to refute any of my points, other than "stealing is wrong!" But you don't seem to care about the crimes of Microsoft. Think before you spew.

I think you mean MS or Microsoft. This M$ crap is making you look like a moron.

Jesus, another grammar major. We all know exactly what he means by M$. It's levity. Lighten up.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Jesus, another grammar major. We all know exactly what he means by M$. It's levity. Lighten up.

Nope, not a grammar major at all. And its not levity. Its a bunch of children thinking they are soo cool because they are breaking the law and supporting a company they say they dont like so they spell its name incorrectly from ie.

 

[sodcha0s]

Nope, not a grammar major at all. And its not levity. Its a bunch of children thinking they are soo cool because they are breaking the law and supporting a company they say they dont like so they spell its name incorrectly from ie.

I see. They support a company by stealing from them. That is the most retarded thing I've seen in this thread yet.

 

[Need4Speed]

I'd say this thread has gotten a bit out of hand...this is almost as bad as the flamewars of old about 3dfx and Nvidia
I generally try not to reply to threads that have taken such a drastic turn for the worse, but I'll make an exception in this case.

In any event, we all know that running unlicensed or copied software is indeed stealing. No two ways about it. The justification is irrelevant. I think many peeps tend not to frown upon it because in their eyes it is a victimless crime...and let's face it, there really is not a lot of risk involved in hoping on an FTP site and grabbing a copy of whatever...It's not like walking into crapUSA and stealing a copy off the rack...thus the lax attitudes.

Personally I could care less either way. I have used copied software and I've bought a good share of it too. I don't plan on changing my habits anytime soon. I often use copied software to try before I buy. Let's face it...nowdays it is difficult to return software if you are not happy with it (obviously because its so easy to copy). This doesn't make it right, but it's also not fair to force you to take store credit for something that you are not happy with...I guess that's life.

Furthermore, IMHO, casual copying between friends is practically harmless and is a small percentage of the actual piracy that takes place. When copies are made with the intent to sell, that's when I believe things take a turn for the worse. Profiting from someones elses property is definately not the right thing to do.

With all that in mind, I would hope some of you guys cool your jets...stop the name calling and finger pointing, and return to a normal conversation.

Stealing is Stealing. Just because your interpetation differes from someone elses, doesnt make it right...no need to force your opinions on others.

-P

 

[capybara]

nOcmonkey: i dont understand why u defend m$ so vigorously - your a linux user , right?
==============================================================
bsobel: please get phychological counciling you have an anger management problem/
full of unnecessary hostility/ u need help. 10532.

 

[Workin']

I see. They support a company by stealing from them. That is the most retarded thing I've seen in this thread yet.

That's not retarded at all. If you or anyone else hates MS so much, and want to make a real change in the marketplace, then stop using MS products, legitimate, pirated, stolen, or whatever.

You are so blind that you can't see that even though you may steal MS' operating system, you are still USING it - which means that you want hardware manufacturers and other software companies to develop stuff that works with Windows, which just perpetuates MS' hold on the market! That sure seems like supporting MS to me. You don't have to directly put money in their pocket to support them.

And you have no idea how things work if you think MS writes (or should write) drivers for every piece of hardware on the market for every version of their OS, past, present, or future. As was pointed out earlier, it's the hardware manufacturer that is responsible for driver support, not MS.

I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but I am no fan of MS, or their business practices. I run Linux on my server and all my other PC's except for one, and if Microstation ran on Linux and there was an open source implementation of ASP+VBScript I would run Linux all the time. Unfortunately I have some clients that insist on ASP/VBScript for web development and need Microstation for my engineering work so I am stuck with that for now.

Up until a month or so ago, I had various versions of Windows (all were evaluation releases due to expire) running on all my machines. But I just couldn't stomach MS' business tactics - the last straw was a campaign letter from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) saying they and their members (mainly MS) were targeting all businesses in my geographic area as potential software pirates, I had had enough. The arrogance and accusatory tone of the wording of the letter pissed me off so much that I decided I would never use Windows as my main business platform, so I did some serious looking into alternatives. And found that there ARE viable alternatives available - it just takes some (but not much) effort to find them. But I also broke down and bought one copy each of WinXP and OfficeXP for the one PC that is now running them, to replace my evaluation releases. It wasn't even that expensive. Once I realized that I was supporting MS' dominance even though I hadn't directly given them money, simply by using their software I was encouraging other developers to write for that platform, and that was reinforcing MS domination just as surely as if I had bought the software, I knew I had to do something. Now I only buy hardware that has support for Linux, AND I let the manufacturer know that that is one of the reasons I chose their product.

 

[hungrygoose]

when microsoft stopped supporting windows 95, as did most major software companies, they officially forced you to upgrade, if you hadn't already.......did they offer anything for those people upgrading from 95?! of course not....the right and wrong bit is completely tired!...let's try to remember that comparing a piece of software to a piece of hardware is not a fair comparison.....w/ software, once it is developed, you are only paying for the rights to use it, b/c it costs next to nothing to actually physically produce the cd, whereas with hardware, every video card or whatever has to be made out of parts by either machines or technicians or watever.....big difference there! i could start tomorrow working for ms reproducing winxp cd's without any problem, but i couldn't make a gf4! do u see my point? $200+ per user for the rights to use a piece of software is ridiculous! i'm sure if you're loaded, then that's just spare change, but i'm not!...also remember that if it weren't for pirating, probably 75% of the educated technicians out there, would probably be a few steps behind just b/c of money restraints.....it's hard to get MCSE certified if it would cost you 5 or 6 hundred dollars just on operating systems, plus the price of courses and exams!

 

[bsobel]

> bsobel: please get phychological counciling

Why your the idiot you thinks people are 'threatening him'. Go away now crybaby.

> $200+ per user for the rights to use a piece of software is ridiculous! i'm sure if you're loaded, then that's just spare change, but i'm not!...also remember that if it weren't for pirating, probably 75% of the educated technicians out there, would probably be a few steps behind just b/c of money restraints.....it's hard to get MCSE certified if it would cost you 5 or 6 hundred dollars just on operating systems, plus the price of courses and exams!

Ridiculous? What I still don't get is how is forcing you to use it. If you can' pay $200, then don't use the software. (And what version are you running [that you need to run] that it's costing you 200+?)

Bill

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: capybara
nOcmonkey: i dont understand why u defend m$ so vigorously - your a linux user , right?

On occassion, and not by choice

I just think everyone should get what they work for.

BTW, Microsoft does offer upgrades, which are cheaper than the full versions. So stop saying they arewnt giving you a break for upgrading.

 

[hungrygoose]

the fact that it's 200 dollars isn't the point.....what if they charge $1000 for it and then came out with a different one every other year or so......then, they stopped supporting the older versions!....i'm sorry, you can say what you want, but when they stop supporting the older version, they are in turn no longer offering the same product that you payed full price for when you bought it......the upgrade break is irrelavent(mispelled)......the thing is, other than going from 16 bit to 32 bit from 95 to 98, from going from fat to NT from 95 to nt4, there haven't really been any core changes to the operating system....so y do they charge a full fledged price for going from 98 to 98se or ME???....the minor changed that were made could've been made through patches and updates.....even at the $99 upgrade price, that was still ridiculous!....same situation from nt4 to 2000, then to xp....those changes could've been implemented through patches and updates.....they weren't major core changes for the most part!.....if i could go out and buy one version of windows, and stay up to date with the newest technologies that they implemented, up until a major core change, i would be happy.....but you can't......essentially if you payed for winME, you payed $99 for patches and updates.....no major changes.....same thing if you went from 98 to 98se

 

[spyordie007]

shut up, all of you just shut up.

It's not free, and MS does not owe you anything. (yes it would be nice if they fixed the problems in their OS's, that's why updates are free, but it's not reasonable to expect them to please everyone in the whole world. it's not even reasonable to expect them to please everyone in this thread).

You DO have free alternatives that are great OS's (and if you have something about them you dont like you are allowed to change them).

would you all quit attacking eachother? the one thing that we should be able to agree on is that every one of us is entitled to our opinion (and not much more). if you dont like someone else's opinion dont tell them their stupid. walk away before it becomes a shouting match.

-spy

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: hungrygoose
so y do they charge a full fledged price for going from 98 to 98se or ME???.........even at the $99 upgrade price, that was still ridiculous!..

How about digital video support?

..same situation from nt4 to 2000......

Fat 32, encrypted or compressed NTFS file systems, not to mention thousands of other new features that NT just plain couldnt do...

....those changes could've been implemented through patches and updates.....they weren't major core changes for the most part!.....

your right, they weren't
those changes however represent thousands upon thousands of manhours spent researching and programming and implementing those features. if you consider the billions of dollars that Microsoft spent "creating" Windows 2000 isnt it reasonable to expect that you would have to pay something to be able to use it? Or perhaps it's more reasonable to expect Microsoft to continue to spend billions of dollars supporting and adding features to that $200 piece of software that you bought from them over 7 years ago?

I dont agree with everything that MS does, but I do believe that if a company (or a person) spends this much time and money working tword creating something that I decide that I want to use (for whatever reason) that they deserve some form of compensation. If I believe that compensation (their fee) is too high than it's time to move on to something else (like all the other OS's that people are giving their work away for free on, such as Linux, FreeBSD, etc.)

-Spy

 

[bsobel]

What if we take MS out of the picture. Say I have a $30 package I sell, but I find that for every 1 copy sold 7 are pirated? Do I as a software vendor have a right to try and protect my product and make it harder to steal? That is what this whole debate boils down to (and, btw, this example is real)

Bill

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: hungrygoose
when microsoft stopped supporting windows 95, as did most major software companies, they officially forced you to upgrade, if you hadn't already.......did they offer anything for those people upgrading from 95?! of course not....

Windows 95 support was dropped relatively recently, and for good reason. First off, it's now 2002. 7 years is an eternity in the PC world. Like it or not, Windows '95 has been antiquated by the progress of PC hardware & software.

Another thing... Those of you who have done technical support know how costly it is to train support techs. Even relatively simple things (DSL/cable support) frequently require a week of training or more. Supporting an OS would require many times that. Companies simply cannot afford to train people to support an OS that will generate a miniscule portion of their call volume. If you spend just as much money training for W95 as for 98, but receive 100 times as many 98 calls, why are you supporting 95?

the right and wrong bit is completely tired!...let's try to remember that comparing a piece of software to a piece of hardware is not a fair comparison.....w/ software, once it is developed, you are only paying for the rights to use it, b/c it costs next to nothing to actually physically produce the cd, whereas with hardware, every video card or whatever has to be made out of parts by either machines or technicians or watever.....big difference there! i could start tomorrow working for ms reproducing winxp cd's without any problem, but i couldn't make a gf4! do u see my point? $200+ per user for the rights to use a piece of software is ridiculous!

You pass over the development as if it were nothing - THIS IS WHAT MS REALLY DOES! Selling CDs in boxes is merely product delivery, the real work you're paying for is the thousands of developers & hundreds of thousands of hours they log creating the software you want for free.

i'm sure if you're loaded, then that's just spare change, but i'm not!...also remember that if it weren't for pirating, probably 75% of the educated technicians out there, would probably be a few steps behind just b/c of money restraints.....it's hard to get MCSE certified if it would cost you 5 or 6 hundred dollars just on operating systems, plus the price of courses and exams!

Perhaps you should find a different hobby then? Technology is not a right! Many people here are near the cutting edge of PC hardware, yet they can't afford an OS?

Everyone is limited by money. If we weren't we'd all be driving Ferraris to work. I took the bus to work this morning.

But I paid for my OS, as I have for every OS I've run.

Viper GTS

 

[hungrygoose]

i'm not saying it should be free, if it was 30 or 40 bux, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation........and let's not forget that consumers purchasing the software is not really where the bulk of their income is generated from anyway.....getting the big players in the industry to jump onboard and start shipping their compaq's or dell's with the windows operating system is where their money is made.......i bet if you compared how many machines are sold w/the operating system on it to the amount of copies sold, there would be a favorable difference toward the systems....not to mention the amount of server and workstation setups that run windows 2000 server or pro or watever......their money is not all made up by us buying their operating system, keep that in mind.....if they had a viable competitor, their price would be lower....also, let's remember that for joe consumer, even if they did want to get into linux, quite a few of them would walk into compusa or wherever and $70 for it instead of d'ling it for free.....so it's not always free either.....but i can stomach $70 for a full version os better that 2 or 3 hundred bux!....most ppl. aren't complaining that it's not free, they are complaining that it is too expensive considering how often a new version is released

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: bsobel
What if we take MS out of the picture. Say I have a $30 package I sell, but I find that for every 1 copy sold 7 are pirated? Do I as a software vendor have a right to try and protect my product and make it harder to steal? That is what this whole debate boils down to (and, btw, this example is real)

Bill

You bet Bill!
I just gave you a user rating of a 10!

It doesnt matter how much a company sells their software packages for, people still want to steal it. We'll just use the example of Sachs Marine aquarium (a screen saver), it costs $21.95 (the demo is shipped on the XP Plus CD). However shortly after a keygen was released people started stealing it from the man (Jim Sachs) who bulit it. He spent many hours programming it himself, doesnt he deserve compensation? Does he have the right to alter his software so it makes it harder to steal? You bet! If his software has conflicts with your particular video card and it takes him many more hours altering his program so it will work with your video card is he obligated to do this for you for free? No way! MS is no differant, only on a larger scale! For more info about his screen saver visit http://www.fish-byte.com/

-Spy

 

[bsobel]

It doesnt matter how much a company sells their software packages for, people still want to steal it. We'll just use the example of Sachs Marine aquarium (a screen saver), it costs $21.95 (the demo is shipped on the XP Plus CD). However shortly after a keygen was released people started stealing it from the man (Jim Sachs) who bulit it. He spent many hours programming it himself, doesnt he deserve compensation? Does he have the right to alter his software so it makes it harder to steal? You bet! If his software has conflicts with your particular video card and it takes him many more hours altering his program so it will work with your video card is he obligated to do this for you for free? No way! MS is no differant, only on a larger scale! For more info about his screen saver visit [L=http://www.fish-byte.com/]http://www.fish-byte.com/

Funny, I have a registered copy of that program for my daughter (she's 2 and absolutely loves it). A worse example, Trillian. Trillian is free but if you register they give you a key that basically thanks you for donating. Someone wrote a key gen for that!

The suggestion that was made that this debate is because MS demmands hundreds of dollars vs $70 for an OS doesn't hold up to me. If one will pay $50 for a game and $20 for a screen saver, how is $99 for an OS out of line? Oh well, this is a debate that will never be won. Now that we know that hungrygoose's price is $70, someone else will now point out it should be $50 (and so on).

Bill

 

[hungrygoose]

You pass over the development as if it were nothing - THIS IS WHA

by the way....i had thought about that....microsoft releases a new os about every three years let's just say:

365 days X 3 yrs. = 1095 days X 24 hrs./day = 26,280 hrs./3yrs.
let's say they just sold 1 million copies @ $100 each, that's $100,000,000

now, 100,000,000 / 26,280 = $3,805.18/hr.
that's if they worked every hour of every day, and if they only sold 1 million copies.
That's also not taking into consideration all of the money they get from advertising, but also not including any money that they spend for advertising or marketing, but i think you'll agree that this is how they became as big as they are, charging more than it should really cost to license software, b/c there is not VIABLE solution for end users. When you have no other comprable solution, you don't care what they charge for it, you just have to have it, right???

 

[spyordie007]

$3,805.18/hr

divided by how many software engineers, market researchers etc.?

that's if they worked every hour of every day

so that's really if one person worked every hour of every day, not the thousands of employees that MS has.

-Spy

P.S. they dont really get money for advertising, but they do spend money for advertising.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: hungrygoose

You pass over the development as if it were nothing - THIS IS WHA

by the way....i had thought about that....microsoft releases a new os about every three years let's just say:

365 days X 3 yrs. = 1095 days X 24 hrs./day = 26,280 hrs./3yrs.
let's say they just sold 1 million copies @ $100 each, that's $100,000,000

now, 100,000,000 / 26,280 = $3,805.18/hr.
that's if they worked every hour of every day, and if they only sold 1 million copies.
That's also not taking into consideration all of the money they get from advertising, but also not including any money that they spend for advertising or marketing, but i think you'll agree that this is how they became as big as they are, charging more than it should really cost to license software, b/c there is not VIABLE solution for end users. When you have no other comprable solution, you don't care what they charge for it, you just have to have it, right???

You can't truly be this dense, right?

MAN HOURS are what matter. If you have 1,000 people working a project, only working 8 hour days, EVERY DAY you rack up 8000 hours.

If those 1,000 people are each making a moderate $20 an hour, you just spent $160,000 - not counting benefits, overtime, etc. As an hourly cost, that's $20,000 an hour.

Viper GTS

 

[hungrygoose]

yea, and that's also if they only sold 1 million copies over the course of three years!!!!....c'mon....

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: hungrygoose
yea, and that's also if they only sold 1 million copies over the course of three years!!!!....c'mon....

Of course these numbers completely fail to take into account that all of the sales don't actually go to Bill Gates et al, but to the exmployees and shareholders of the company (yes, Bill is a big shareholder). So as a MS shareholder (not as big as the other Bill, unfortunately) I want to see MS sell as many copies as it can and stop those people who are stealing from them.

Bill

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
As an hourly cost, that's $20,000 an hour.

that's using the example of only 1000 people, MS has way more than 1,000 people.
Plus this does not include things like the facilities that MS has to own and operate, the computer systems that those engineers work on and test the OS, etc.

I do software support for a large software company (NOT Microsoft) and I can assure you that software development is extremely expensive. When you have a piece of software like Windows XP you are really holding software that cost Billions to make (not the few cents that the CD costs). The only reason they charge less than Billions is because thousands of people buy it.

-Spy

 

[hungrygoose]

and once again, let's try to remember that microsoft brings in money on more than just the sale of operating systems by themselves to consumers!....what about when dell agrees to put windows on every new system they build, what about those type of contracts?....let's not forget about that....i'm saying that if 1 million people came into office depot in three years and payed an average of $100/OS, that is $100,000,000 right there!....do you fail to realize that microsoft isn't making money off of those consumers only??!!....are YOU that dense??
be realistic man, you're sitting here and arguing that microsoft is not making a sh*t load of money!! are you retarded??....check their freakin stock man....i have to say ViperGTS that before now i thought you were a very realistic and intelligent guy, but right now, you sound like you just want to argue about something??

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: hungrygoose
yea, and that's also if they only sold 1 million copies over the course of three years!!!!....c'mon....

OK, let's say they sell 100 million copies. Let's say they also have 5,000 employees who make an average $30,000 a year.

10 million copies * $100 = $100,000,000
5000 * $30,000 = $150,000,000

Damn, these numbers just don't work out very well for you now do they?

I'm looking for accurate MS employment figures, BTW, I have no clue what they really are. But I'd imagine they have at least 5,000 people.

and once again, let's try to remember that microsoft brings in money on more than just the sale of operating systems by themselves to consumers!....what about when dell agrees to put windows on every new system they build, what about those type of contracts?....let's not forget about that....i'm saying that if 1 million people came into office depot in three years and payed an average of $100/OS, that is $100,000,000 right there!....do you fail to realize that microsoft isn't making money off of those consumers only??!!....are YOU that dense??
be realistic man, you're sitting here and arguing that microsoft is not making a sh*t load of money!! are you retarded??....check their freakin stock man....i have to say ViperGTS that before now i thought you were a very realistic and intelligent guy, but right now, you sound like you just want to argue about something??

Why do you think I chose 100 million units sold? I'm taking into account all units sold, & I'm figuring all at retail prices - OEMs don't pay retail prices! 100 million units would be one out of every three people in the US (men, women, and children) buying a software license once every three years.

Yes, Microsoft is making sh!tloads of money - AND THAT IS THEIR RIGHT!

Viper GTS