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He sings, he strums, and he works at Best Buy. view!
www.youtube.com/bestbuy - Musician and Best Buy employee, Keith Parsons, rocks his Best Buy holiday campaign audition.
71 Comments
- affanjam, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22How come I never get to take part in any polls. I feel left out. ; (
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19How about '51.8% of users that try open source find it is as good or better than commercial software so reduces their piracy urges'.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19I am totally in that 52%
Since switching to Linux, the only thing I have pirated is the Windows A/V codecs, since it is illegal in the US to install them without paying a fee to MSFT.
F/OSS just makes me feel so much better about myself. Proprietary software begins to just seem dirty. - theragu40, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16It certainly helps me curb my piracy needs. I don't need to pirate photoshop if I have the GIMP, I don't need to pirate Office if I have OpenOffice, etc etc. Of course, not buying the software is really the same difference as pirating it in a business sense...the companies still aren't getting any money...so shouldn't they be as pissed about open source as they are about piracy? I mean technically they're 'losing' the money I would have spent on their product by me using open source instead, right?
- SkyPirate, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15There ya go. Lets see how digg users feel (top poll)
http://diggpolls.blogspot.com/ - Rorrim, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18The second two words in the explanation gave away it's accuracy right there.
- bonked, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14I'll be honest - Ubuntu Dapper completely broke me of any need for commercial software. Paid or Pirated.
And once one takes the time to learn the feature set as one would when they shell out cash for software termitenshort you will find that many open source apps are much more feature complete than their commercial brothers. - CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14So getting stuff for free legally stops people from trying to get the stuff for free illegally.
Genius! - baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9yuppers, since i switched to GNU/Linux a few years ago i sold my eye patch and put my parrot up for adoption...
- Jammerdelray, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Utorrent reduces the urge to pirate? I think not.
- illt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8after reformatting a few weeks ago i found myself bypassing the reinstall of my pirated Office altogether because of openoffice and docs.google.com
granted, they're not nearly as feature rich as MS office, but sure gets the job done for me as well as having good karma. - 98acura, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Wait, you mean software isn't free? People actually PAY for this stuff? Holy crap!
- ichthus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Software that I don't want to pirate [any more] because of OSS alternatives that I use:
1. MS Office -> OOo, Thunderbird
2. CuteFTP -> FileZilla
3. Acrobat (not reader) -> PDFCreator
4. SecureCRT -> PuTTY
5. Hummingbird -> Cygwin
6. Photoshop -> GIMP (adequate for me, and I actually like the interface.)
Others that I can't think of right now...
Nero is still better than Deep Burner, and Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit) is still way better than Audacity. But, the above list is still a pretty good chunk. - yoyar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Old setup - basically 100% pirated - guess which OS. New setup Slackware / KDE / Amarok / MPlayer / Firefox and so on... Sweet, and no piracy. Well, of software anyway.
- dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I find OSS often has MORE features, such as OpenOffice.org's Math suite, which draws pretty formulae, which can be easily inserted into other OpenOffice documents.
And Ubuntu is great, I my desktop is currently dual booting Windows XP and Ubuntu Dapper, and once I finish with my imminent uni exams, I plan to upgrade to 6.10, and do some tweaking so that I need windows even less, and possibly, can remove it alltogether... - SeBBBe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I reinstall XP using a pirated automated disc rather than the original I actually posses, because it's a pain going through that installer and answering a question every five minutes...
- sebnukem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Research shows that 51.8% of all people who use the term "research shows", are just making ***** up.
- InsaneMachine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5If anything they should be more pissed off about open source. Because then not only are they not getting money for the software, they also miss out on a user base.
- podgey22, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4*description
No it means however much you make an operating system and its applications free, there is always content that you still need piracy for. Eg: Getting the latest US TV in England. There are no legal options open (apart from going-without).
There's also the case of it not having equal (or better) functionality on commercial apps, as I covered:
http://www.thepcspy.com/articles/linux/linux_needs_golden_applications - masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@dacheetah:
I love Photoshop and using GIMP makes me cringe, but it seems to me that most pepole pirate Photoshop so that they can make forum sigs, or just have a basic image editor for online purposes. For those things, GIMP works just fine. Of course, for photo editing, original content, and flexibility, Photoshop beats it hands-down.
However, I do agree that OpenOffice is a better example. And I'll have to check out that formula thing -- I'm a Physics major, too! - Roger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5@bonked:
"many open source apps are much more feature complete than their commercial brothers."
I don't agree with that, but I guess it depends on what kind of software you use. - thatsmyaibo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Why are you Digging him down? I go to diggpolls all the time. It's nice to see what other people that use digg think.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@r2d7
There are many examples where that is the case, but there is also a large bout of if-it-costs-more-it-must-be-better-itus involved in that. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3When it comes down to it pirating software and using a free alternative generally has the same end result for the commercial software vendors, if you pirate a copy of Windows, MS loose out on the money from your purchase, but if you run Linux MS still loose out on the money.
In fact MS would probably do better if people did pirate Windows instead of use Linux since it keeps their monopoly running. - saska, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3People who believe in free software ought to use free software. It's just that simple.
- zbeast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Open source reduces my need for commercial software in
locations where its not needed.
But in some cases I like the commercial solutions better
Photoshop is a good example.
It's stupid for a home user to buy windows 2003 and exchange to get mail. - Ademan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I officially deleted my windows partition for good a month ago, and i'd been dual booting windows and ubuntu for about 6 months now, in fact a little longer since i got on board right before dapper. I used windows for counter strike source EXCLUSIVELY, but now WINE can play it well (its been playing it for at least 3 releases now) and so i have no use for my Windows partition anymore.
Either way, I feel that open source software is GREAT for people who can do without certain features. But generally, you do get a little less with open source, there are notable exceptions where I actually like open source programs MORE than their proprietary/non-free/commercial counterparts, but they are FEW AND FAR BETWEEN. Ubuntu works for me, perfectly in fact, but its still not right for others, and the beauty of open source software is that it's constantly improving, but that implies it starts at a level that...isnt so great... and thats the way it is with every project
cheers
-Dan - SkyPirate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I completely agree. I know a lot of people like the new Office 2007, but with all the open source i dont see buying it nor illegally downloading it.
- DesireCampbell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Good point. The poll was about two different kinds of "free software". Most people make little distinction between them.
- pap3rw8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2open source sure reduced my piracy. Well, that and a dmca notice.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I assure you if i could use a free version of software that worked 100% the same as the non free version, i would take the free version. But thats just the problem, it never seems to be that way in most cases
- Daunting, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I feel that it has. I always have a slight hint of nerdish giddiness when I see a non-computer savvy person using FireFox and OpenOffice. Maybe it's my anti-corporation side budding it's head but sheesh. What other avenue on this planet besides the internet has offered people a window out of the corporate stranglings of everyday life and given people the opportunity to publicly produce and distribute on a massive scale almost anything you want. There isn't anything more democratic on this planet.
I see individuals going throughout their everyday lives under arrest by their never ending faceless corporate jobs and coming home tired from all of these people more important than you telling you what to do. And in many respects, in today's world that is most of a person's life. But then we have these publicly made, publicly distributed works (Be it youtube, or ubuntu) and having a massive group of people participate into it.
Open Source is already one of the biggest movements out there. But I'm hoping it has the possibility to change history.
/optimism
I doubt these stats are all that trustworthy, but just from my personal experience, Open Source is IN. - Wisgary, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This just in:
100% of buyers feel Free TVs reduce their urge to steal TVs. - dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Piracy is convient. If the "legal" soloution is more convient, then there will be less piracy..
Sure, I could buy music using the iTunes Music Store. But, then it'd be locked to this PC, I can't do much with it (Send the odd song to a friend [which will either end in them buying the album, or nothing - the same as would happen if I didn't send the song], mess around in an NLE with the song as a soundtrack, even transfer the song to the laptop, or some other storage device and easily listen to it on another computer).
A much better example : Games. I bought Battlefield 2142 (And now pretty much regret not downloading it) : I had to walk to town and back to the bus station. Then put the DVD in, manually type a the key number in (instead of copy/paste, or some kind of patched installer). The install was then longer (CD-to-harddrive, Instead of harddrive-to-harddrive, with something like Alchohol 120%).
Then, I *have* to find a "valid", unused username to login to EA's auth server, even to play online.
The next day, I took the DVD to college to install it on my laptop (to kill free time), it installs fine (Luckily I took the manual, which had the CD-key). I then go to play it in offline, single-player mode. And I have put the CD in (I took it out). The game loads up - I have to be f'king online to login, to play offline. Theres no (obviously) accessable options to set a network proxy, and if there was, unless it has HTTP-based logins it'd not work (the SQUID proxy doesn't seem to like non-HTTP traffic..)
Half Life 2 was equally annoying, *but* once you had it online once, you could (sometimes) put it in offline mode, and play without a network connection (Although the only reliable way I found of playing HL2/CS:S on my laptop at college was to start the game, and hibernate the computer, which was slow to start up...)
I [disclaimer : didn't*] download Half Life 2 Episode 1 (I don't "support" the idea of episodic games, so didn't want to buy it). It was a folder I extracted from a RAR, I opened it, double clicked an EXE, and the game started..
No CD-key, no online activation, no forced-steam-updates, no waiting for games to decrypt.. It just, started..
The legal soloution HAS to be more convient, less annoying and generally better than the illegal option before piracy will stop. Sure, there'll be the people who pirate stuff because it's cheaper, but a lot of anti-piracy measures are doing quite the oposite : Turning would-be legal customers to piracy..
- Ben - masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This doesn't mean anything. It simply means that because there is a large open source library of programs out there that can do the -exact same thing- as the commercial products, it's simply easier to download the open source software than to download the commercial software and find a crack. For instance, before GIMP, people might have pirated Photoshop because it's a great program. However, now that GIMP is around, it's easier to download a free program that has almost all of the capabilities of Photoshop than it is to find a Photoshop torrent with seeds, download it, and then go find a crack/serial that actually works.
It's not a change in attitudes -- that's way over analyzing the situation -- users are just getting the free software because there's no need to pirate when the free software can offer the same, or better, in some circumstances. - djAnakin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've just recently been having this same conversation. Downloading The Gimp instead of Photoshop; OpenOffice, instead of MS Office; GAIM instead of Trillian, etc.
I "need" these programs, but I can't afford the ridiculous prices they charge for the software. I don't care how I get the job done, as long as it get's done. If I need a pirated app to do that, then so be it. But, if I can do it with something free, that would probably be a better choice. Free most likely equals 'less pain in the ass for me to install/run/etc'. - troopa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I agree that it doesn't have as many features as Photoshop, but I also think many people never even use those advanced features anyway.
- wheaty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Paint.net is a good well developed program but it is not a replacement for photoshop. Feature-wise it just isn't as full. Photoshop also does a better job rendering pictures with the best size/clarity ratio for the internet.
- seopher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the website is down atm - mysql outage... should be back up soon.
- doodlebumm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've migrated to open source products almost completely at home. I use a single commercial product for running my scanner under Linux. I used to use xsane, but it was never consistent. My new product is flawless, so the $50 I paid for it was well worth it to me. I could use lots of pirated commercial software if I wanted, but I am willing to use OSS even if the software is a little less capable than it's commercial equivalent. I am willing to pay for a product that is significantly better than any OSS version as well.
This means that if your product doesn't make a difference, I'm not going to even bother looking at it. I think this means that there is a lot of mediocre software that is going to die off because they can't compete against free. That is one reason that spyware made its debut - you could make money on a free product.
Now there will have to be new business models for making money, though the old models will still work in a great many cases. It's the also-rans that are going to have to change.
In some segments where the OSS offerings are very strong, I think that they need to worry that they are going to have to change their business model in order to maintain their market share. - seopher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1but the TV given away for free only has 40% of the channels?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Comrade! You have seen the light of the glorious revolution! down with the capitalist pigs in their office buildings!
Prolitariats! RISE! - cphuntington97, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5Anytime I use Ubuntu I think - man, if only it was 1995, this would be KILLER!
- imyayo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If the alternative piece of software functions and looks just as well as it's counter-part, pirating is unneeded in my opinion.
- digjedi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+151.8% of poll takers are retarded.
- noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I wasn't polled, add me. :)
- wafflesomd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Dont need to pirate stuff for linux.
Half the stuff I need is already there. - troopa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I recently removed all pirated software from my Windows machine. The large amount of quality open source software has made the transition much easier.
- troopa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I replaced Photoshop with Paint.NET - give it a look.
- Wootery, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So your point is that, in a perfect world at least, people would use free software for what isn't too important to them, and pay for (superior) proprietary software if they needed something better?
I hadn't thought of it like that, indeed I've never really thought of open-source software as being necessarily inferior to payware, but my point that open-source software's reduction of piracy does not benefit the industry remains. -
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