BSA Again Lies With Stats; IDC Should Be Ashamed To Put Its Name On Pure Nonsense
from the not-again dept
For nearly a decade now, research firm IDC has done research for the Business Software Association (BSA), which BSA has long used to purposely mislead the press and politicians. Back in 2004, at least, the research at IDC was willing to admit that the BSA was being purposely misleading with its report, and yet it’s continued to do the research and stand by it year in, year out — despite the continued efforts to use the stats to flat out lie. As far as I’m concerned, this makes all IDC research totally suspect. Until IDC steps up and admits that the research it has put together does not say what the BSA claims it does, IDC has to be considered a joke.
This year’s study, of course, was no different than in past years, so we’ll point you once again to the explanation we put together in 2008 of how the BSA blatantly misleads with statistics.
Beyond the basic report, though, the BSA likes to dribble out other ridiculous claims based on the same report from May. The latest, is the blatantly false and simply laughable claim that “reducing software piracy would inject $142 billion into the global economy and create nearly 500,000 new jobs. This is wrong. Not only is it wrong, it’s been widely debunked a variety of times. There are two key (but related) problems. The first, is that IDC/BSA count “ripple effects,” which they don’t seem to realize mean double, triple or quadruple counting the same dollars. But, more importantly, they only count those “ripple effects” in one direction. That is, they look at how they believe software companies would make more money (and then hire more people and pay more taxes) if there was less software piracy, but they don’t even pretend to cover how paying for such software would mean tons of others would employ fewer people and pay less in taxes.
And, if you dig into the details, as Glyn Moody recently did (amusingly, after having to dig through many, many different reports to finally discover IDC’s questionable methodology), you realize that reducing software piracy actually would probably do more harm than good for jobs and tax revenue in many areas:
One thing that is always omitted in these analyses is the fact that the money *not* paid for software licenses does not disappear, but is almost certainly spent elsewhere in the economy (I doubt whether people are banking all these “savings” that they are not even aware of.) As a result, it too creates jobs, local revenues and taxes.
Put another way, if people had to pay for their unlicensed copies of software, they would need to find the money by reducing their expenditure in other sectors. So in looking at the possible benefit of moving people to licensed copies of software, it is also necessary to take into account the *losses* that would accrue by eliminating these other economic inputs.
One important factor is that proprietary software is mainly produced by US companies. So moving to licensed software will tend to move profits and jobs *out* of local, non-US economies. Taxes may be paid on that licensed software, but remember that Microsoft, for example, minimises its tax bill in most European countries by locating its EU headquarters in Ireland, which has a particularly low corporate tax rate….
So in addition to causing money to be taken out of the country (and hence the local economy), licensed software would probably also bring in far less tax than money previously spent on local goods and services, which would generally pay the full local taxes.
Another factor that would tend to exacerbate these problems is that software has generally had a higher profit margin than most other kinds of goods: this means any switching from buying non-software goods locally to buying licensed copies of software would reduce the amount represented by costs (because the price is fixed and profits are now higher). So even if these were mostly incurred locally, switching from unlicensed to licensed copies would still represent a net loss for the local economy.
Similarly, it is probably the case that those working in the IT industry earn more than those in other sectors of the economy, and so switching a given amount of money from industries with lower pay to IT, with its higher wages, would again *reduce* the overall number of jobs, not increase them, as the report claims.
Of course, a bunch of folks have been pointing out these kinds of problems with IDC’s research methods and with the BSA’s claims about them for the better part of a decade. At what point do people start actually holding IDC and the BSA accountable for blatantly lying with stats?
Filed Under: jobs, piracy, software, stats
Companies: bsa, idc
Comments on “BSA Again Lies With Stats; IDC Should Be Ashamed To Put Its Name On Pure Nonsense”
In summary, 2/3 of BSA is BS.
A manager once told me, regarding the issue of giving customers refunds (that we knew they deserved according to our records): “every dollar you give to them is a dollar out of your own pocket.” It wasn’t literal, but she of course meant that if the company made more money then I would make more money. I didn’t believe it for a second because she would apply the same logic to giving me a raise – my raise would constitute money the company could pay her instead.
I’m convinced that that is the motto of every for-profit capitalist company in the world. They must teach it in business administration classes or something.
They (being pretty much anyone with a dogmatic belief that copyright laws, as they stand, are sacred, and in fact, perhaps too weak and in need of enhancement) believe that it’s them or us. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. You take what you can get and let the rest of the bastards starve. You hire lobbyists to buy off politicians to secure whatever legal protection you can for your company and your profit. Nobody wants to be the morally upright sucker who can’t pay his mortgage! Let’s all be the greedy bastards driving luxury SUVs and living in mansions! And if someone argues with you or points out that you’re contradicting yourself and utterly nonsense, sic a lawyer on them or impugn their character and ideals.
I’m not a fan of the moral dilemma regarding “two wrongs don’t make a right,” but I don’t consider it a second wrong to not allow yourself to be taken in by their greedy machinations. So I say, play their same game. Every dollar you give to them is a dollar you’re never getting back. These companies aren’t giving you jobs. They only want your blind consumerism. When you spend money locally, theoretically, you’re investing in your neighbors. It’s impossible for that money to not get spent elsewhere eventually, but knowingly handing it over to someone who spits on you as you hand him your money is just perpetuating your own problems.
Re: Re:
Well put, and in addition – the bsa and others like them attempt to kick your ass if you do not give them your money.
When I say that IP people are all “lying bastards” people think I’m rude.
Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
Mike, every time I read your post about software piracy I thing you turning off your ability to logic and reason.
Reducing software piracy will have all kind of effects, and first one is that people will start to value software _more_. There are studies all over that show – people value expansive stuff more. The more you pay for something – more you value it.
It also probable that software companies will start provide warranty for their products. When I pay for something – I expect warranty for every item – from toothpick to airplane.
Now, please put aside your beaten to death example about “valuable air that is free of charge”. This example is wrong all over – clean air is far from being free: you paying for it directly (cost of real estate) and indirectly (taxes).
The argument of “money not being lost” is a shame for someone claiming to have knowledge in economics. Money does not disappear anyway. It doesn’t matter whether you spend it on pork from local merchant or software from megacorp. If you spend it to product with higher margin (software), said megacorp will either put money in bank (thus investing back into economy) or will hire more people (again, investing in economy). Exception is foreign megacorp, but that’s what import taxes are for.
Glyn Moody’s mental exercises of “what good software piracy brings to IT” are ridiculous. Every single industry pay for it’s tools. Of cause, money spent on tools will not going to employees, but that’s trade-off every industry make – automatic tools (costly, but effective) or manual labor (cheap, but ineffective).
Argument about “reducing/increasing number of jobs” is even more silly. Every automation (don’t love progress?) reduce jobs. Remember your “creative destruction”? What matter, is amount of goods created, not number of people involved.
And finally – repeat after me: “software is utility, not entertainment”. If (some) software fails – people die. Simple, isn’t it? You can’t say it about any other “creative industry”. You can not replace software with movie, while you can instead of watching movie read book, for example. So, the mere fact that software distribution governed by same copyright laws as movie is coincidence, it will eventually be fixed.
Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
Your logic and reason seem to be wishful thinking and self-delusion.
Software can be entertainment (computer games anyone?) but a lot of it is utility. The utility of software is where its value lies. Yes, some people are sheep and will blindly value something more because they paid more for it. The rest of us will resent having to pay more for something that can be infinitely reproduced at little or no cost to the creator and thus must be arbitrarily priced.
Price is not value. Value is not price.
I’ve bought premium items and some are well-manufactured and some are just more expensive because they have a particular brand name slapped on them. Just because *some* people value expensive stuff more than inexpensive stuff, it doesn’t actually increase the utility of the expensive stuff.
You can expect warranties for items you purchase, but you may not get it. Not every company is willing to take on that liability.
Real estate and taxes have nothing to do with the supposed cost of air. Do homeless people pay taxes or own real estate? They still breathe don’t they? Where’s the correlation?
The local merchant will likely invest the money you pay him locally. He has to pay his rent/mortgage, pay for supplies, feed his family, etc.
Megacorporations take every opportunity to avoid paying taxes. They provide their CEOs with tens of millions of dollars in golden parachutes. They fire workers at the drop of the hat if it will raise the stock price a little. They outsource jobs to foreign countries despite still expecting domestic populations to be able to afford their products.
If you haven’t been watching the news lately, the banks that these megacorporations are putting money into are not loaning money to the people who need it. They’re holding onto as much as they can and waiting for more government money to make the market flourish before they start to take a chance again.
So to some extent, yes, the money is lost. It’s sitting around earning rich people more money while the poor people go into debt going back to college to try to learn new skills to stay relevant in the diminishing job market.
Re: Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
Your logic and reason seems to be complete lack of understanding of how economy works. When you say “yes, money is lost” you show how complete clueless you are on subject. Money _never_ lost.
And ranting about “earning rich people more money, while poor people …” have no touch in reality; while smelling communist propaganda – I have enough of this in $country some time ago.
Repeat after me: money never lost, that’s not how bank system works. When some rich dude have millions in bank, poor dude can take loan and start business.
To your points: “do homeless people …” – that’s irrelevant. They are _homeless_. Sick people doesn’t work, which doesn’t mean that you should not.
“The local merchant will likely invest the money you pay him locally” – and megacorp will what, eat money? Or invest on Moon? No, it will put money in bank and your local merchant will have cheaper loan. That’s how bank work, whether you like it or not.
“If you haven’t been watching the news lately…” – yes, corruption does not help. This have nothing to do with subject at hand.
“Megacorps take every opportunity to avoid taxes” – and your local shop does not?! Do you imagine some of them think: “is there any way to pay some more taxes”? No, you simply have no idea how business-taxes relationship works.
“Price is not value. Value is not price.” – but there’s strong relation between them. And every single valuable thing have price. Clean air (as other perks from mother nature) – environmental taxes; love – try to have a real relationship or family; and so on.
Re: Re: Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
What planet are you from?
Re: Re: Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
“Repeat after me: money never lost, that’s not how bank system works. When some rich dude have millions in bank, poor dude can take loan and start business.”
Ok crazy person repeat after me, money never lost is crazy talking the real value of that money can disappear and be lost, money can be removed from the market by the central bank, money can be lost by the contraction of the market, money can be lost by bad archiving since it is a fiat currency and not backed by anything except the good work of the government.
Also the financial crises proved that banks were not working under the assumption that they needed any collateral to lend anything.
Fractional-reserve banking in that case was a total illusion.
Furthermore the government is the principal owner of the money being lended to everyone that is very much true for big pharma that is making a killing from the government that not only uses taxpayers money it also emits new money to cover the costs(Chartalism at its best).
Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
The idea that people value software more based on price is total crap. This is utility stuff, not a Gucci purse.
When a new version of Office comes out , do I think
“Wow, a few hundred bucks ? That must really add value to my business because it’s highly priced. For a moment I suspected it was a waste of my money buying features I don’t need when I thought it was going to cost fifty bucks but now I see it is $290 I realise now it is far more useful.
No, I think one of 4 things
1. Wonder if it starts up any quicker ? (you’d think I’d have learnt by now)
2. I wonder if they fixed that stupid bug with styles that appeared in word 6 yet
3. Shit, soon my sheeplike customers will upgrade and my current version will need updating for no apparent reason
4. Oh great, Open Office supports the new file format already. Maybe this is the time when I finally switch off MS Office for good, since the free import filter doesn’t actually correctly open network shared files for editing anyway.
Many software upgrades are not because they are required or to move closer to customer’s needs (or else software would get smaller and faster with continuous improvement). They are to give an excuse for extracting more revenue from a plateauing market.
What most people need from a Word processor is far simpler than any of the front runners. If I had office 97 but with ODF capability it would be more than I needed.
It seems that only google documents of the major players actually gets that.
I value some of my cheap (but excellent) software far more than some of my heavy weight stuff.
And ask MS if they’d rather every pirated copy of Office became a copy of OpenOffice overnight. Definitely not, they need to keep up user share even if it is not paid market share.
You also wrote “every automation reduces jobs”.
Only true in the actual factory itself. Make a country more productive through automation, and more industry will locate there, as well as standards of living rising.
Conversely, would taking all the car assembly robots out of Detroit and making them assemble cars by hand reduce unemployment ? I think not.
Re: Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
“The idea that people value software more based on price is total crap” – educate yourself first, before threshing others.
People are not logic machines, that’s why we have psychology for people and mathematics for computers.
Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
Typical attitude from someone like you. You are dismissing the other side’s arguments offhand, and misrepresenting a few irrelevant studies to push through your own opinions. If you disagree with Mike’s and Glyn’s ideas, then you need to say WHY. Also, use pronouns.
While I’m sure there are studies showing a correlation between the price and perceived value of physical goods, I’m not sure what they have to do with software.
If you are given an expensive car to drive, it’s quite normal that you WILL be extremely careful in case you damage it. You only perceive more value in it because it’s very expensive to repair or replace — it is tangible and scarce, and so is your money. If you are filthy rich, then perhaps totaling an expensive car won’t mean much to you.
The same cannot be said for software, however. Software cannot be damaged, so value cannot be perceived in it like in physical objects. If I buy a super-expensive copy of some program, I’ll be careful not to damage or lose the disc, but will the program itself be any better simply because I paid more? No. If I damage my installation of the software, I can simply reinstall it.
A prime example that shows value vs price vs utility is, of course, Windows and Linux. Since Microsoft has a bit of a monopoly, they can price their software any way they like. They can pull a random number out of their arse and make you pay it. Linux, on the other hand, is free. Political arguments and ignorance aside, if you ask any knowledgeable computer users, they’ll likely tell you both OSs are equally good. So, repeat after me: in the case of software value is not determined by price — it is determined by utility.
Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
“Reducing software piracy will have all kind of effects, and first one is that people will start to value software _more_.”
People already value software a lot. Proof: all the kinds of open-source projects that exist that attempt to improve or replace already existing tools.
Why do people do this? Because they like they tools (they value them), but find them lacking in functionality. And often, the ones that produce that software aren’t willing to include that functionality or fix bugs.
“There are studies all over that show – people value expansive stuff more. The more you pay for something – more you value it. “
1: Provide links.
2: This is wrong both in both directions.
What do you value more: a Pentium 2 or a modern dual-core processor? I bet the pentium 2 costed you more back when they started selling them. Yet, you just toss it away when it is time to upgrade. You value your new CPU much more because it is a hell lot faster, yet, it costs you much less because the price of hardware drops dead after a couple of months these days.
Now the other way. Do you value oxygen? Do you pay for it? Notice that if you are homeless you don’t pay taxes, therefore your theory that the price of air is somehow included in taxes or the price of real estate falls apart. Also, do you value sunlight? Do you pay for it?
But this raises an interesting point. You can still find ways to charge for air, even though it exists in an almost infinite supply. How? By bringing it to where it doesn’t exist: Underwater.
“Argument about “reducing/increasing number of jobs” is even more silly. Every automation (don’t love progress?) reduce jobs.”
This is absolutely retarded. According to you, building a 1km long tunneler machine to dig a tunnel under the British channel will destroy a bunch of jobs. But you forget that you still need people to operate the machine, people to perform maintenance and people to direct he operations. Technology doesn’t destroy jobs, it merely shifts the need for jobs from manual labor to more technical jobs.
“And finally – repeat after me: “software is utility, not entertainment”. If (some) software fails – people die. Simple, isn’t it?”
Ah, I see your point. When I _play_ Swat 4, if I fail the mission, people die. Yes…very serious. /sarcasm
Software can be both an utility and entertainment. Not all systems are linked to vital facilities. If my windows crashes, nobody is going to die (unless, of course, if I was playing a game. Then someone at Microsoft is going to be killed :)).
“You can not replace software with movie, while you can instead of watching movie read book”
I can read a book instead of playing games. What is your point?
Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
Mike, every time I read your post about software piracy I thing you turning off your ability to logic and reason.
Only about software piracy? Interesting…
Reducing software piracy will have all kind of effects, and first one is that people will start to value software _more_. There are studies all over that show – people value expansive stuff more. The more you pay for something – more you value it.
This is not true. There are studies that show that *in certain cases* price is a *signal* for value, and people will take it as such, but that is *not true* for every product. I’d be interested to see if you have any studies showing it’s true for software. Price works as a signal in certain instances, but not in many.
It also probable that software companies will start provide warranty for their products. When I pay for something – I expect warranty for every item – from toothpick to airplane.
Welcome to market economics. If people demand a warranty then some firms will provide one (and they do!).
Now, please put aside your beaten to death example about “valuable air that is free of charge”. This example is wrong all over – clean air is far from being free: you paying for it directly (cost of real estate) and indirectly (taxes).
Actually, paying for real estate is not paying for air directly or indirectly. I still have air even if I don’t have real estate, and when I pay for real estate I have no rights to the air overhead (see that airplane up above, that’s why).
The argument of “money not being lost” is a shame for someone claiming to have knowledge in economics. Money does not disappear anyway. It doesn’t matter whether you spend it on pork from local merchant or software from megacorp. If you spend it to product with higher margin (software), said megacorp will either put money in bank (thus investing back into economy) or will hire more people (again, investing in economy). Exception is foreign megacorp, but that’s what import taxes are for.
And, if people don’t spend it on software, it goes into other businesses, thus putting it in the bank (investing back in the economy), hiring more people (again, investing in the economy) or using it to buy other goods and services (again, investing in the economy). What’s your point?
Glyn Moody’s mental exercises of “what good software piracy brings to IT” are ridiculous.
You make that claim, but you provide nothing to back it up.
Every single industry pay for it’s tools. Of cause, money spent on tools will not going to employees, but that’s trade-off every industry make – automatic tools (costly, but effective) or manual labor (cheap, but ineffective).
My company’s “tools” are based on Linux which we didn’t pay for. Because of that, we can hire more people. What’s your point now?
Argument about “reducing/increasing number of jobs” is even more silly. Every automation (don’t love progress?) reduce jobs. Remember your “creative destruction”? What matter, is amount of goods created, not number of people involved.
Um. Look at the history of automation. It always ends up increasing the number of jobs. Telephone operators were automated out of business, but it created all sorts of new telco services, including the internet and ideas like customer service call centers (that let you make use of that warranty you so love).
And finally – repeat after me: “software is utility, not entertainment”. If (some) software fails – people die.
That “(some)” is rather important, isn’t it? Be careful how broadly you paint with what’s very much a narrow brush.
You can’t say it about any other “creative industry”. You can not replace software with movie, while you can instead of watching movie read book, for example. So, the mere fact that software distribution governed by same copyright laws as movie is coincidence, it will eventually be fixed.
I have no idea what you’re saying here. It appears, however, that you overvalue software.
Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
Just two things to add to the other rebuttals. First, you confused two different things talking about software and a warranty. There’s no reason a company can’t give away software and sell a warranty for it (ie customer support). They’re separate things. Second:
http://ninapaley.com/mimiandeunice/2010/07/28/price-vs-value/
Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
“And finally – repeat after me: “software is utility, not entertainment”. If (some) software fails – people die. Simple, isn’t it?”
What software is essential to what life? We use software to control dangerous and life-saving equipment, but we lived just fine for a pretty long time before software existed.
Can bad software being used in dangerous or life-saving equipment cause injury or death? Yes. Can a company be charged with murder for having a bug in their software that kills someone? Please find me an example if this has ever happened, because I have never heard of it.
Now, are you arguing that paid software vendors produce bug-free software? Sorry to tell you this, but they do not.
Are you arguing that some kind of warranty on the software makes us safer? Um, fixing the bug after the automated bull-dozer drives over the school bus is probably going to happen whether there was a warranty or not.
as others point out
if you take money away form people that they spend into other industries those industries lose the very jobs you create and because this part of the industry is so over priced they just dont spend
there is a threshold of consumer tolerance
if you have an item worth 7000$(autocad as example)
and you lock it up and make it impossible to get a competitors who was at 150
some might buy but many who bought the 15 jsut wont buy it
thus in fact you shrink your software base and then the future of people that do what it is your selling.
THIS is why surceforge.net exists and has such a massive dbase of software FREELY avilable
and the list isnt shrinking ts growing as these industries lock up ip and make laws that continue to restrict people
ONE day i suspect they will claim free software restricts jobs and ya know what too bad if i want to DONATE my time and effort to make somehting and give it way its my god given right by the bible itself it says being charitable is a good and just thing.
remember the story of the merchant in the temple….
Re: as others point out
Contrary to popular belief, free software (the useful one, not sourceforge) is not created by clueless dudes like you in spare time. People are paid to create it. From Linux kernel to OpenOffice, from Firefox to mysql, every single one was created by employees of some megacorp (Sun, IBM, Novel …).
Overpriced – don’t buy. Nobody forced you to by Autocad. Ah, right, there’s no FOSS alternative – and you know _why_? Because you can’t create Autocad – size project on your spare time. And those who can – already paid to do other useful things.
Re: Re: as others point out
http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html
Re: Re: as others point out
“free software (the useful one, not sourceforge)”
I’m not sure what you are going on about as I find sourceforge quite useful. Are you insinuating that code fouud there is created by clueless dudes in their spare time? Even if the code were written their spare time, how would that necessarily make the code useless? And upon what do you base your assertion that the program creator is clueless? It seems you are either biased or ill informed.
Re: Re: Re: as others point out
Wast majority of code found on sourceforge is useless junk no matter who wrote it and for what reason.
Very few high-profile OSS project reside on sourceforge, on the other hand.
Should I explain in even more detail?
Re: Re: Re:2 as others point out
And this is important because…
Re: Re: Re:2 as others point out
BRLCAD
http://sourceforge.net/projects/brlcad/
FreeCAD
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/free-cad/index.php?title=Main_Page
To all who needs CAD.
Also there are dozens of other free CAD’s on sourceforge.
Please explain in more detail so we can gauge your ignorance LoL
Re: Re: Re:3 as others point out
“Please explain in more detail so we can gauge your ignorance”
I second that – lol
Re: Re: Re:3 as others point out
Both junk. Next candidate please?
>> Also there are dozens of other free CAD’s on sourceforge.
Yeah, and people paying for Autocad must be mentally challenged. Right.
Re: Re: Re:4 as others point out
You can do better than that dude, you got owned not only there are Free CAD’s but there are dozens of projects and many are used professionally by universities and companies.
Sourceforge only have junk like award winning math software.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sage/
About the paying thing. Well to buy Autodesk you got to be brain damage, it is expensive and it is not even top of the line all the other competitors are actually better(i.e. CATIA, Pro-ENGINEER…) besides there is a philosophical difference.
Autodesk is expensive and nobody can get training easily, Autodesk have a protected market and doesn’t need to work that hard, maybe that is why they are getting left behind, also Autodesk needs to expend resources trying to fight piracy and illegal uses.
Opensource is free, anybody can get the training if they want too, it has no hidden costs, what you see is what you get, it can be distributed easily by anyone and the money making part doesn’t depend on expensive enforcement of absurd rights.
Who do you think will endure?
Re: Re: Re:5 as others point out
>> Who do you think will endure?
Autocad will. You seems to have no idea what Autocad is good for. It’s manufacturing industry standard, for example.
FreeCAD you say? Unsupported hobby project? _This_ is supposed to be used for manufacturing? What planet are you from?
One idiot here mentioned Blender as Autocad substitute. Listen up, dude, Blender is not CAD, it’s 3D animation tool.
Re: Re: Re:6 as others point out
“One idiot here mentioned Blender as Autocad substitute. Listen up, dude, Blender is not CAD, it’s 3D animation tool.”
Blender can export to STL files that can be used in 3D and CNC machines did you know that?
http://www.shapeways.com/tutorials/exporting-from-blender
Did you know there is a project to facilitate the CAD thing in Blender?
http://projects.blender.org/projects/blendercad/
Want to see precision modeling with Blender?
http://www.rab3d.com/
Want to do medical imaging with Blender?
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:5tacj1VHCPoJ:perso.telecom-paristech.fr/~anquez/Data/Articles/cars09.pdf+blender+medical+imaging&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjgJFba1fx7YtaeEi9qCB6yByC1pl2rjK4LCc1J-PYQHF5jDQ1MUiI8Q9fCEBXme_fxowO-PqoGremkd7OgdES6t5pFb1eiSOfA-MPlLgEkH0GTUpSBaf80RFQxYHlKTr3VGhkv&sig=AHIEtbSWooMess53jJdqWA_afWvUTuGZwQ
Want to see molecular data in Blender?
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:5mAYaqxsDNoJ:www2.inf.fh-brs.de/~mgante2s/pdf/Paper_Bio_3D.pdf+blender+molecular+modeling&hl=en&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiPo4-vB3JUheyGd262r6Kd4H2WKCfjtboqlTuNRLiv6O_1-Aal_04ObRU-jMITgjK6oF_5XgjP0J36o0wUeXwkWJdsXupI2WyOWA8kyso6PFIQDXb3vA0wgFLq9JKRQatFjyaq&sig=AHIEtbSt_B9XtOook8b6ZU9U7UsL07KVOg
Blender is not Autodesk is not limited by someone, people can go in and do whatever they want too, and it even exports to DWG but that is not reliable, people prefer to use STL instead because they don’t need to ask permission to a dumb company.
Re: Re: Re:6 as others point out
Your Autocad retort is noted however not everyone has the money nor the need for such an app – go figure.
Now on to your unsupported claim as to the usefulness of software found on sourceforge. Obviously, you find no use for anything on the site, but why would you therefore assume that no one else would either?
Re: Re: Re:6 as others point out
Wow, two days of debate and you still aren’t learning from other’s opinions…
All you’re doing is deriding the opposition to your post without any effort to even try to come up with a (weak) rebuttal.
Re: Re: Re:6 as others point out
Funny that you call people here idiots when you are the one making an ass of yourself.
Lots of people have _destroyed_ your argument and you have not yet provided a convincing rebuttal.
WHY do you think the open-source alternatives are worse? Why is AutoCAD better? Just because it is the standard? IE is (a) standard, but is it any better than competitors? Nope.
And please, study a bit before answering, or else I am going to have to fail you on the Turing test.
Re: Re: Re:4 as others point out
In short anyone paying for software that don’t let you do anything with it is brain damaged, mentally incompetent, mentally challenged or whatever you wanna call it.
If I need a real god CAD I would not use Autodesk, for all other uses open source alternatives are good enough and have some serious advantages in that they permit anyone to expand and adapt as needed, Autodesk doesn’t offer that does it?
Can Autodesk be shared among a group of engineer’s without cost?
Can Autodesk be manipulated to create custom functions?
Can Autodesk be used to train personnel for free?
Can Autodesk be adapted to fit a work pipeline?
What is that Autodesk does that other software doesn’t?
http://www.shapeways.com/tutorials/prepping_blender_files_for_3d_printing
I don’t think you have an answer to that.
Re: Re: Re:5 as others point out
Hello there AC, I work for a firm that among other things does engineering, with various CAD packages, including AutoCAD.
Can Autodesk be shared among a group of engineer’s without cost?
To answer your question, AutoCAD licenses can be (and are) shared between engineers within our company using the network licence features. This is without additional cost.
Can Autodesk be manipulated to create custom functions?
Yes, yes it can, using various languages. LISP routines are most common, but other languages are used as well. I suggest you google “AutoCAD Addons” for many examples of companies selling custom functions for AutoCAD.
Can Autodesk be used to train personnel for free?
It depends on how you look at it. But no.. Autodesk like almost every other company doesn?t come train your staff. However the network license sharing would allow staff who required training to open AutoCAD using an unused license.
Can Autodesk be adapted to fit a work pipeline?
Well now, that depends on the sort of work pipeline that you are talking about.
What is that Autodesk does that other software doesn’t?
In our case a few technical things, but not much. There are two real reasons we continue to use AutoCAD.
1) It’s the de-facto standard format for design work. We need to be able to read AutoCAD with confidence that there has been nothing lost in translation. Going to another firm and telling them their design is broken, only to find our import was wrong is not good for a professional organisation.
2) Our users are familiar with it’s operation, retraining costs and getting user buy in to move to another product are significant.
Now, don’t get me wrong here.. I don’t think that AutoCAD is the bee’s knees.. but if you are going to complain about it, at least get it right.
Re: Re: Re:6 as others point out
Thank you for setting things straight, it is always good to hear from people who work with it directly.
But I have one question.
The network license I assume is one lincense shared inside a network, that needs a live connection to it right?
So in cases were the license server is down you cannot use the software and if you ever need someone to cover you, you can’t do it without risking the company security right?
Real case scenario, a man has a sick wife and are his son is routinely doing his work so hi can go and take care of the house and his wife. This is extreme I know but I do understand that everyone once in a while have an emergency and need others to cover for him at some point, network licenses don’t seem the best way to do that.
Training in large part depends on community, and so the answer is yes one can get training for Autodesk because it have a immense community and material available for free on many places, I love opensource but am not blind to other things(mostly).
e.g.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OSIvqCxFAg
The pipeline question is no, as you cannot read the source code to make adjustments and study it to make things compatible solutions will always lake confidence.
Re: Re: Re:4 as others point out
“Both junk. Next candidate please?”
Right. Dismiss all of the examples people presented here without any sort of constructive criticism. WHY are they worse?
“Yeah, and people paying for Autocad must be mentally challenged. Right.”
The main reasons people pay for software (I think) are:
Support: people (companies) pay for software because that (usually) ensures that you will get technical support, installation, training, etc. Also gives some guarantees that bugs will be fixed and features will be added.
Compatibility: This is an issue when proprietary file formats are involved. For a long long time, OpenOffice was unable to reliably open MS .doc files, and even today, the formatting is kinda screwy when opening them. If you want to open your old MS office files reliably, you are tied to Microsoft, and you have to pay.
Stability: Open-source software is often in constant development. Sometimes, bugs slip through and ruin the whole experience. This, obviously, also happens with proprietary software. But the fact that you pay money for it gives you the perception that that software will be more stable. Often that is no the case (Windows…).
Familiarity: Open-source software normally tries to emulate the look and feel of the proprietary software it tries to emulate, but often they go a different (better?) way. People that have used one software for a long time usually like stick to the one they are familiar with. Even if that mean forking over some cash for the new version.
If the above reasons don’t apply, then open-source is the way to go. Online communities will provide you with support, the bleeding edge versions have the latest and greatest features, sometimes surpassing proprietary software and they are often more stable than their proprietary counterparts. Open-source all the way.
Re: Re: Re:2 as others point out
You are either insane or a shill for some industry. Or you just hate FOSS in general.
Lots of open-source games are made by people on their spare time without any pay. Examples: Battle for Wesnoth, scorched 3d, warsow (and many others based on Quake 3 engine), stepmania, nethack and many many others.
I don’t know much about music, but I use LMMS and find it nice to mess around with music. There are others, but since I’m no authority in music, I don’t know.
Then you have tools: LaTeX, emacs, vi, many flavors of Linux shells, many flavors of desktop managers for Linux (and even some for windows), file-system managers, etc…
For multimedia, I use VLC and Amarok. Other exists, like mplayer and Rhythmbox. I read somewhere that FFMPEG has the most comprehensive library of free and non-free video and audio codecs. I use it often to convert between video formats.
For graphics: Blender (yes, an alternative to AutoCAD exists, inform yourself) and GIMP. Imagemagick is very useful to convert between image formats.
Can you honestly say that all of these applications are useless junk? Have you ever used any?
Re: Re: Re:2 as others point out
Ah-ha
Could it be that you are upset about the DDOS attack upon a few websites – and the tool used is available at sourceforge.
If that be the case then the following may apply
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=stooge
Re: Re: as others point out
There is no alternatives for AutoCAD?
Blender can do it and it was developed in the spare time of some good people.
BRCAD was developed originaly for the U.S. Army and still goes strong with people developing it in their spare time.
What are you babbling about?
The only thing contrary to popular belief is that Linux was created by Linus Torvalds I believe and at the time he had no job so you may want to rectify that.
Also sourceforge is quite useful, everything I ever wanted I found it there, so you may not be looking right, maybe you just need to practice your google-fu 🙂
Numbers are funny.
One report found out that half the world think it is ok to download things for free without prior consent and they probably know that it is illegal LoL
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/90709/norton-cybercrime-report-46-think-illegal-downloading-is-legal/
But I do believe that report is cooked up with the right questions to try and evoke some kind of emotional response in favor of copyright owners, because if it was serious and they asked people if they were ok with making backups that number would close to 100%, oh well who cares.
What it is funny is that those same reports if they have been done in the past and they have would show less people agreeing to take anything from others, and the only thing that comes to mind is that people are getting fed up with the current situation and the IP guys could find themselves in a world of hurt in the near future.
Re: Re:
One report found out that half the world think it is ok to download things for free without prior consent and they probably know that it is illegal LoL
I believe Zeropaid misread that report, and *added up* three separate groups that were independent (meaning there may have been a fair amount of overlap). I think what that study showed was more like 15% think it’s legal to download.
Re: Re: Re:
…and perhaps a more significant number is how many think it is illegal to download but do it anyway.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
… or how many think it should be illegal to download anything.
Re: Re: Re:
I believe Zeropaid misread that report, and *added up* three separate groups that were independent
You’re right about that Zeropaid article. But, as to the question of whether sharing media for free is “OK” (as opposed to “legal”), then 46% is probably not too far off.
For example:
“Among 12- to 15-year old web users, 44% thought downloading shared copies of films and music for free should not be illegal, 18% did not have a view and 38% said that it should be illegal.”
– from an article in The Guardian about an Ofcom survey of young people and internet use.
A different article about that survey points out that the acceptance of infringement decreases with age group.
In other words, as time goes on, the belief that non-commercial infringement should be legal will only increase.
New old news
Reading this story I followed the links backward to 2008 and found that there is an important update. At least I think its important.
US courts now believe that EULA’s trump the right of first sale.
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/magic-words-trump-user-rights-ninth-circuit-ruling
Im interested in hearing Mike’s opinion on this one.
I think piracy makes sense when you pay for something and you are still denied ownership. So the people that want you to pay for their product don’t want you to own it and be happy about this.
Re: New old news
Im interested in hearing Mike’s opinion on this one.
And here it is:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100912/12212110968.shtml
"Piracy" benefits
Moody isn’t even considering some of the detriments from reducing “piracy” (“for the sake of argument”).
For example: If many people pirate software (e.g. Adobe Dreamweaver) then their skill set will be geared toward that software. Switching to a competing piece of software will require re-learning the software, and that can take significant amounts of effort.
In this case, “piracy” results in a larger number of users who know how to use that software, but not other (non-pirated) software. This, in turn, makes it much harder for the non-pirated software to enter the marketplace, as the entry costs become higher to the user.
I believe it’s called “skill set lock-in.” I’m not sure who coined the phrase, though.
On the other hand, if “piracy” was somehow eliminated, most “pirates” would be forced to go with cheap (or free) alternatives, including open source. The “skill set lock-in” advantage would be lost, and you would be giving ground to your competition.
It’s why the FSF (for example) is against software “piracy.” They don’t want you to pirate software; they want you to use libre software instead.
They’re not alone. Bill Gates said, “It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.” Another Bill Gates quote makes his reasoning clear:
Re: "Piracy" benefits
By the way, I meant how stopping “piracy” detriments the software developers, not the economy in general.
So I guess “piracy” does harm the economy, in a backhand way, by enabling monopolies.
I’m pretty sure the BSA will never mention it, though.
They forgot to dismiss the number of software titles one may download, install, try, and uninstall. Most software is crap, overloaded with features we don’t use and then charging exorbitant fees to license. I have 300 PC’s running Windows 7 (just upgraded, what a nightmare) At an average cost of $179.00 USD per PC to install Microsoft Office I would be bankrupt just paying Microsoft. So my IT guy replaced MS Office with Open Office. It works great and saved us $53,700 dollars. I had bought 1 copy of MS Office and installed it. I found it had all kinds of communication features. Who needs them. That last thing I want my 300 PC’s doing is wasting time and talking to each other. I want them to work not talk. If I want talk I’ll watch the news. Then I uninstalled it and put it on CraigsList to get rid of it. Software companies have gotten over for too long with their policy of not accepting returns. So even at our company we download it, install it, try it, and 99% of the time we uninstall it. If we like it (about 1% of the time) we buy it. Not 300 licenses because that is piracy. We have now gotten into the practice of buying only software that will install on a server and then all of the people accessing that server can use the software. 1 copy per group instead of tons of licenses which eventually creates an administrative nightmare.
research firm garbage
It’s not just research firm IDC that has a credibility problem, rather this whole so called research business in general has a huge problem. Gartner for example has lots of gullible IT management people eager to gooble up their tripe, which is passed off as objective reports. The people reading this crap never bother to examine who actually writes it. Assuming say Gartner or IDC’s name is on the report the reader believes it must have been vetted. Fact is, these organizations rely on independent contractors to write the crap they sell, and provide little oversight on the validity of a report. Way too often a reporter never fully researches their subject matter, or simply plugs one side of a story source out of laziness or perhaps bias. Crazy! Way past time to stop relying on the IDC and Gartner’s of the world for factual information.
Same as allways, all fluff little facts.
so we’ll point you once again to the explanation we put together in 2008 of how the BSA blatantly misleads with statistics.
And Mike you would NEVER, EVER blatantly mislead with statistics, no ofcourse not, you just re-write the function of the economy to suit your warped argument. and no you dont quote statistics, because none agree with you. simple.
and your niaeve beliefe in the ‘reverse ripple effect’ saying if a company does not have to pay for software they will pass that savings onto the local community, or the workers at that company, what a freaking joke Mike do you actaully believe that dribble ?
Or do you just expect us to buy it, and drink from your Kool-Aid fountain ?
so all this unlicensed software, where does it originally come from ? unpaid amateur programmers? or professional companies that pay employees, and create communities, pay people and create a real ripple effect.
So if all software is in your utopia free and able to be used for no cost then those companies producing that software will cease to exist.
I know you cannot see that Mike, as that does not fit with your master plan, but its reality. And if you are so damn sure of yourself why dont you apply it yourself. Lead by example, not by ranting !.
But by looking at your grasp of economics, finance and the world in general I can easily see why you sit on an obscure blog and rant about copyright all day. Its easier than getting a real job..
Sooner or later people will work out that your crazy idea’s are just that, with little or no basis if reality or fact.
It would be ok if you actually used REAL examples to prove your argument, but you never do, you fluff around the edges, no game to get into the meat of it, and not game to do more than a cursory glance at the situation (if that) before shooting straight from the hip, into the growd. what is more surprising is your committed but small band of supporters who happily guard dog for you. You might want to remind them to think for themselves sometimes, as blindly following what you say as Gods truth is not a good look.
(to put it gently).
Why dont you report on the big outcry from the X-Factor show stating the massive damage they receive due to pirating of their works and show. And its the artists from the show also complaining not just the industry.
But you would ignore that Mike, like you ignore everything that does not fit your narrow world view (street view ?).
Your tendency to “switch sides” is also amusing, you are inconsistent, it depends on the company involved how you interpret the law. If its a company you like its a crime to use the law against them, if you dont like it, then that is OK.
You cant have it both ways Mike, (unless your into that kind of thing), the law is applies equally, like it or not, it does or strives too. Because you like or dislike a company or method does not give you the right to make desisions as to their guilt of innocense.
But as you are not a player in the game, it does not really consern you, im surprised you get so upset about things that have next to nothing at all to do with you.
This article is a classic, you complain about a group posting stastics, and yet you post NO FACTS whatsoever. you just make claims, that are unsupported.
The ripple effect can be and is readily measured, its real, the “reverse ripple effect” you talk about cannot be measured as it does not exist.
But lets not let facts get in the way of a good weekend rant 🙂
Re: Same as allways, all fluff little facts.
AAAGH! THE STUPID! IT BURNS!
Re: Same as allways, all fluff little facts.
you fluff around the edges, no game to get into the meat of it, and not game to do more than a cursory glance at the situation (if that) before shooting straight from the hip, into the growd.
Once, when I was on set, a fluffer was getting into the meat of it, and after a cursory glance I shot straight from the hip, into her growd. Boy, was I embarrassed!
The other important thing that is never touched on with software piracy is education. Most software piracy is not done by businesses, but by individuals. These individuals are using their “stolen” software to teach themselves (where intentionally or not) to become successfully employed individuals contributing more to the economy.
When do you get some facts and truth mike ? or is it Glyn
One thing that is always omitted in these analyses is the fact that the money *not* paid for software licenses does not disappear, but is almost certainly spent elsewhere in the economy (I doubt whether people are banking all these “savings” that they are not even aware of.) As a result, it too creates jobs, local revenues and taxes.
How Mike? (yes, I know Moody wrote this rubbish, but you cut and paste it!!)
What mechanism achieves what you claim here, a CIO saves some money on not paying for software, he gets a extra 100,000 dollar bonus, and spends it on his next trip to Australia !.
Or the company saves the license fee for the software, and the very little money saved will not be fed back into the community, it will go to corporate profits and make some exec ever richer.
Also if its a listed company, they would not destroy their PE ratio with valueless assets on their books.
But to believe that somehow by leting companies take things for free, and not pay for the development and support of that product is going to help the global or local economy one bit is nieve at best..
If you can get things like this SO WRONG, then what else do you say that makes no sense ?
Really you just saying “they almost certainly will spend that money somewhere else” is crazy talk. Mike do you actually believe that ? or is it just what you would like to happen in your utopia ?
Put another way, if people had to pay for their unlicensed copies of software, they would need to find the money by reducing their expenditure in other sectors. So in looking at the possible benefit of moving people to licensed copies of software, it is also necessary to take into account the *losses* that would accrue by eliminating these other economic inputs.
WOW, just WOW, to read this, ive had to read it a few times to actually believe someone (who claims intelligence) would make such a stupid claim !!
Do you HONESTLY believe that companies determine their asset purchases by working out what they are going to CUT !!..
Using that business model, you would consider your company doing very well, if you can stop all production, stop making the product that makes you profit, so you can ‘purchase’ assets. Gee Now I see why you are not a business type person Mike (and Co).
” Sorry staff, due to the need to buy a new truck for our transport company we had to put off all our drivers. We’ll have a nice new truck, but no one to drive it. But we’ll have a nice truck !!!, due to the price of the truck we’ve had to fire all our staff.”. Management StupidCo.
_______
One important factor is that proprietary software is mainly produced by US companies. So moving to licensed software will tend to move profits and jobs *out* of local, non-US economies. Taxes may be paid on that licensed software, but remember that Microsoft, for example, minimises its tax bill in most European countries by locating its EU headquarters in Ireland, which has a particularly low corporate tax rate….
OMFG !!!!!! STOP THE PRESS, Microsoft located its EU headquarters in the EU.. and not im the US of A !!
And Mike how is locating its headoffce for its europe division in Europe taking money out of the US economy ?
Tax minimisation IS LEGAL, you do it every time you keep a receipt for a purchase you can use for a deduction. Tax minimisation is NORMAL practice, not only stupid or criminal people do not do that, Mike would you pay more tax than you are legally required to ? No, that would be stupid.
I guess, you do not like to mention that Conicial is based on the Isle of Man which is much more famous as a taxation haven than Ireland is.
So another strawman goes up in flames, again mike you have shown very clearly you lack on real world knowledge in almost any subject. You just sitting there on your high chair saying “No, your wrong” does not win you any cred.
When clearly its you who cannot grasp even the most basic and simple principles. Puts your level of education into question.
Similarly, it is probably the case that those working in the IT industry earn more than those in other sectors of the economy, and so switching a given amount of money from industries with lower pay to IT, with its higher wages, would again *reduce* the overall number of jobs, not increase them, as the report claims.
Again this is not based in reality, so a company that makes widgets will put off staff that make those widgets because the cost of the IT staff to support those staff are more expensive.. what a joke.. its a joke right.. your not serious, oh you want us to eat that tripe ?
So if you put on expensive IT staff, you cannot afford to do all the things you have to do that required the IT staff to be employed in the first place ?
Again Mike, im amazed that you have the front to feed us this rubbish some some expectation that what you say is the TRUTH, and nothing else can occur, or nothing else does occur.
At least it provides some amusement seeing every day what crazy wild claims Mike and Co will be making today. Picking “facts” out of nowhere, and making it up as he goes along, or just good ‘ol cut and paste you cant beat that and Glyn Moody for some easy dirt.. LOL
What are you smoking?