[FSF-India] Help me out...

[Anil S Babu]

Pappu wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 11:40:21AM +0530, Rajkumar S. wrote:
> > On Wed, 11 Jul 2001, Pappu wrote:
> >
> > > 2) If you develop non-free software, what guarantee do I have that people
> > >    will pay money for it, rather than copy it illegally from a friend?
> >
> > Why should I pay for free software when I can just copy it from my
> > friend?
> See my first question. In the second question, I was refering to
> the large number of computer users (atleast in India) who use nonfree
> software that they have copied from a friendly neighbourhood vendor.
> 
> > In a place where people would rather illegally copy a software than
> > pay for it, what are the chances of revenue generation if the software
> > can be copied legally?
> Practically, as far as I have seen, a home user copies software from a
> friend, legally or illegally, and a corporate user rather buys it.
> Not many home user gets arrested today for software piracy. So vendors
> of non free software depend on the few who choose to buy their software,
> and ignores the majority that pirates it. (It helps bussiness grow by
> getting users addicted).
> So if you are the type of person who buys non free software, why not
> buy free software?
>

Also, remember that by buying a free software, you are getting an
additional facility, ie, "freedom" to modify that according to your
specific requirements and use/ditribute further, which is not available
with a non-free software!!





> 
> > Free Software companies should provide the customers  solution and
> > support rather than products.
> Even non free software vendors must do that. No one can survive by selling
> licenses at all.
> >

This is not neccessary as with GPL, source code is also given, so
maintenance and support can be done by yourself.