Kirubakaran Athmanathan
Setting Ourselves Up
Dec 4, 2005
Ignorance is a temporary bliss…. Heard of the turtle that was put in a pot with cold water and placed on a hot stove? The turtle was so happy when water became warm. But warm water was a temporary condition, wasn’t it? Please read on…
You are a small businessman. You have few computers to help housekeeping. Your disgruntled employee (you can’t avoid that!) makes an anonymous phone call. Police will come to check if you have complied with all software licenses. Even if you did (from your point of view), it is highly likely that you will be ruined for something else. I request you to read this article.
You are an artist. You use Flash or Photoshop. Now why do you do that? Did you buy it? If you pirated it, rest assured that it will come back to bite you sooner than later. I don’t know why they teach Photoshop in India while GIMP (available for Windows too) will do the job equally well - perhaps even better! India is a developing country - we have so many other problems to tackle… Why teach a costly piece of software and tie our talent in to it? I just simply don’t understand. It is okay if you are going to only work for a company all your life. But if you want to create something on your own, you should either switch to open source or be really really scared.
You are an ordinary person. Chances are, you pirate left, right and center - whether you know it or not. Don’t. You are not a bad person. You are just not able to afford costly pieces of software. Nothing wrong with that. So make the wise choice of switching over to open source.
I’ve been harping this for 6 or 7 years now. I hope you will switch before it is too late. Or at least, please spare 5 min and read this article.
My view on this is a bit contrary to what u think..correct me if am wrong. I recently wanted to start a graphic studio in my place. i went around asking for quotation. believe none of the vendors gave me original OS. Even IBM lenova comes sans OS. The vendor offered to give me XP pirated free of cost. then the software. i could not locate a single vendor in madurai. Everyone was ready to give me the pirated version. One guy told me...he has supplied to all graphics, photo deve outlets in madurai. none had problem..why are u afraid. In a society which drives you to piracy. what can u do? well u would suggest me to do my work on gimp. i have gimp for windows in my computer. but my overseas boss needs the workflow to be managed by cs2. Suggest me what to do? I finally located a reseller in bangalore who sold me the entire suite without help file for 75k and cheated me(ofcourse i got it replaced). when you live in a land of pirates...and asked to do a living..u just cant be a farmer without walking he board. what do u say?
Then the point made here is whether or not you want to use pirated software it is a choice whether you want to use pirated software for free or opensource software for free that too without compromising much on performance. let me put it in a better way
Pirated software + fear of getting caught = Peace of mind
Opensource software + working a little bit = Peace of mind and spirit
dei... i feel microsoft is a great employer da. and i am not taking an anti-microsoft stand here. i am just saying that it doesn't make sense for small businesses in poor countries like ours to use costly software. If they are using it, it is highly likely that they are pirating it - which sets them up to be hauled off in chains to the prison anytime. I can't see how a small business making a profit for Rs.5000 per month can buy software for Rs.1,00,000. They are sitting on a ticking time-bomb.
@giri
dei... happy birthday! a little late on wishing you though! :-)
ur comment totally makes sense da. it is just like corruption in politics... everyone does it because everyone else does it! but the response to ur comment needs a whole post da - i will blog on this and let u know...
@mani
dei i think giri wanted software the same day and didn't have the option of ordering it online. anyways, the point you are making is very valid... like i mentioned in my response to giri, i will blog on this and let u know...
Thirupu