Nothing has changed in past 35+ years?

Reading the open letter to computer hobbyists Bill Gates wrote back in 1976, looks like nothing has changed. Quite a big part of us enthusiasts still follow the basic principle Gates told in the letter: buy hardware, steal software.



Kari

Kari said:

Reading the open letter to computer hobbyists Bill Gates wrote back in 1976, looks like nothing has changed. Quite a big part of us enthusiasts still follow the basic principle Gates told in the letter: buy hardware, steal software.



Kari

I buy hardware AND I buy software (unless it's Open Source, then it's free) But, there is one problem these days with paying for software. The big corporations are bossing us around telling us what we can and can't do with our software. That really makes me mad. As the old saying goes "Respect is a two way street." If the big corporations want us to respect them by buying their software, then they need to let us do more with the software we buy and let us have freedom.

Only thing that sucks about buying software is like some games and apps like microsoft word have this type of DRM were it gives you limted installs and uninstalls and activations .I hate that,lost a copy of microsoft word 2003 just because apparently i installed to many times and the key went bad even though I paid money for it and should be able to use it as long as i want and as many times as i want.Pretty much avoid any software with that dumb limitation. That's the biggest problem I have with software vendors,if they stopped doing that then I would probably buy them but i still buy but don't get software with any thing like that. Sad thing is that the ppl who don't buy it don't run into this because they bypass it and will be able to use it as much as they want I usually end up looking for something similar or cheaper or just not get it at all and I the legit buyer usually get more screwed over then the pirate does. Also they over price there software too a lot of times at launch

I use OpenOffice myself. I read recently on their forums that they aren't going to make a version for tablets. Libre, an off-shoot of OO, is working on a tablet version of Open Office.

One problem that I see with "shareware" or the "Pay if you like it" software is that many many people do not contribute the suggested donation. So the authors tend to restrict functions in order to get people to pay.
I have paid hundreds of dollars to shareware authors in the past 25 years. I believe my first was PC-TALK and the second was LIST.

Rich