Monday, April 28, 2014

Why copy software illegally if you can get it for free?

So, you're perfectly clean, you have *cough* purchased a license for all the software you've ever used *cough*, and nobody can bother you about this? Well, if that's the case, congratulations :)

However, for most people, let's be honest, illegally copied software is very common. Copying Adobe Photoshop instead of buying it probably doesn't let you have nightmares. But are you really confident that you won't ever have trouble for that? Not so sure, huh... Software makers are progressing and finding more and more ways to track down illegal owners, and since more and more people tend to have broadband (permanent) connections, they might add an online functionality on the software that will control and verify your copy each time you launch it.

If you run Linux and install free software, you won't have to worry about this ever again! Most of free (as in free speech) software is free (as in free beer). You can find a free replacement for most of the commercial software out there. They might lack some of the advanced functionality, but they'll be more than enough for most people. Here's a list of some commercial software, and their open source equivalents :

Commercial
Open source
Adobe Illustrator (~$500)
Inkscape
Adobe InDesign (~$700)
Scribus
Adobe Photoshop (~$600)
The GIMP
Adobe Premiere (~$800)
Pitivi, Kino, Cinelerra
Adobe Reader (free)
Evince, Kpdf, GV
Apple iTunes (free)
AmaroK, Rhythmbox, Banshee
Autodesk 3ds Max (~$3500)
Blender
Autodesk Maya (~$7000)
Blender
Bittorrent (free)
Transmission
Cubase (~$500)
Ardour
Kazaa (free)
aMule, eMule
Microsoft Excel (~$200)
LibreOffice Spreadsheet
Microsoft Internet Explorer (free)
Firefox, Chrome, Konqueror
Microsoft Office (~$400)
LibreOffice
Microsoft Windows Mail (free)
Thunderbird, Evolution, KMail
Microsoft Powerpoint (~$200)
LibreOffice Presentation
Microsoft Windows Media Player (free)
Mplayer, VLC, Totem, Kaffeine, Xine
Microsoft Word (~$200)
LibreOffice Word Processor
Microsoft Windows Messenger (free)
Pidgin, Kopete, aMSN
Nero (~$100)
Brasero, K3b
Pro Tools (~$600)
Ardour
Quark XPress (~$800)
Scribus
QuickTime Player (free)
Mplayer, VLC, Totem, Kaffeine, Xine
Winamp (free)
AmaroK, Rhythmbox, Banshee


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