Patrick's Soapbox

I've just finished reading Nick Bradbury On Piracy and Part II.

Now obviously I've never made software worthy of being released and paid for, so I can't really talk about this from a creators point of view.

I have actually registered shareware - two excellent applications Synergy and Salling Clicker (for SonyEricsson phones). I will get around to purchasing Proteus as well. These applications (except Salling Clicker) have very little limit on what you can do. They don't bark at you every 10 minutes blaming your for the end of the world. They get bought by people like me because they are good. But I don't buy a lot of software - most of the time I can get something free (by free = legally free).

TopStyle: I remember using that once with HomeSite. It was kind of useful then. Obviously it doesn't run on my now preferred platform (that I know of - don't strike me down if I'm wrong), so I wouldn't buy it now at all. Was it a good application? I think so. Would I have paid for the full version over the lite version that came with HS? I don't think so. Is that because I'm a software pirate? No. It's because it didn't serve a need for me. I use a text editor for my style editing (these days SubEthaEdit, handily lets me jump classes in css, and other things).

Shareware Piracy: I have no doubt that piracy has very real costs to the software / music / movie industry. What I often doubt is the figures. Some, not all, of those using pirated software would not pay for it, even if there was no way of using it for free. These are the users who would find something cheaper, that 'did the job'. There are also users who would like to pay for it, but cannot pay the price, and in the long run will buy it (if it still exists). This argument requires somewhat of a socialist view, but it is a very real situation for many.

Of course, those users could just do what I do: use a free text editor.

Oh well. Rambling. Never mind.