Software Piracy is considered to be a greatest area of concern in the world of Proprietary Software business. Software Vendors have been worrying about the revenue loss they have been subject to, because of the world-wide software piracy, that is being carried out openly. It might be possible, that the system, on which you are reading this page, runs on a pirated copy of operating system.
Although you may have lots of reasons (excuses), for not using a licensed copy of the operating system, Let’s illustrate some of them.
Some Reasons (Excuses) for Software Piracy
The software, that we need is so much expensive, that we can get many computer systems in that cost. Why do they need to charge for a simple software so heavily?
I wanted to purchase a legal copy of the software, but it is not available in my region, and I couldn’t wait for its availability.
I have purchased a legal copy of the operating system, but mine is a small computer institute with five to ten computer systems. Now if I am forced to buy numerous numbers of licenses for all my computer systems, I will have to sell my home, my office and everything that I have.
I had purchased a legal copy of the software, that I need for my business operation three months ago. However, last month they have released a new version of that software, with new features and security fixes. Now I am asked to buy that new version again. Can’t they show some dignity to existing customers, who have already spent a huge amount on them, and provide free upgrades to such customers?
Likewise, there might be many such reasons, why people are not able to purchase legal copies of a proprietary software.
Avoiding Software Piracy
If we closely notice these reasons, the common issue faced by everyone is the cost. The software cost for a even a general purpose software, is generally so high, that some home users, schools, small and medium sized organizations can’t afford them.
Besides, the dependency on an easy to use popular (Expensive) Operating System and Office Application software, is so high, that people claim to be forced to use pirated copies (either knowingly or unknowingly, out of their wish).
So now the question arises, as to how to get rid of Piracy, and live a decent life in the Information Technology Business?
The answer lies in switching to FOSS (Free and Open Source Software).
Switch to FOSS
For all those who are new to this term, Free and Open Source refer to those software, which are developed for free distribution, along with its Source Code, through the a Free Software License like GNU General Public License. As per this license:
The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program–to make sure it remains free software for all its users. We, the Free Software Foundation, use the GNU General Public License for most of our software; it applies also to any other work released this way by its authors. You can apply it to your programs, too.
GNU GPL is introduced by the Free Software Foundation. However, there are also other variants of Free Software Licenses apart from GNU GPL. Some of them are:
- Apache Software Foundation License
- Creative Commons
- MIT License
- Mozilla Public License
- Exhaustive List of FOSS Licenses at OpenSource.org
Some FOSS Alternatives for Proprietary Software
Lets have a glance over the FOSS alternatives to most of the popular Proprietary Software.
Operating System
The most popular and (considered as) User Friendly Operating Systems today are well known and commercially available. However, there are Free and Open Source Operating Systems available in market, which are ignored by general public, just because of the perception, that they are difficult to learn and lack user friendliness.
However, there are large scale operating systems, supported by Open Source community, that have been successfully powering small to large scale systems, that too with robust efficiency, and virus free environment.
GNU/Linux is one such FOSS operating system. There are many flavors of Linux, which are generally referred to as Distros. These are some of the GNU/Linux Distros:
- Debian – https://www.debian.org/
- Ubuntu – https://ubuntu.com/
- Fedora – https://getfedora.org/
- CentOS – https://www.centos.org/
- Open Mandriva – https://www.openmandriva.org/
- NetBSD – http://www.netbsd.org/
- FreeNSD – https://www.freebsd.org/
The list will go on to be exhaustive. You can visit Distro Watch which is a dedicated website that has collection of the numerous variants of FOSS Operating Systems
While we have seen the GNU/Linux distros, there are few enthusiasts, who have also come up with experimental variants of MS Windows and Mac OS.
- ReactOS – This is an experimental FOSS clone of Windows OS. You can check out the details at https://reactos.org/
- ravynOS – This is an experimental FOSS clone of Mac OS based on FreeBSD, to be run on any non-Mac Personal Computer. You can check out the details at https://airyx.org/
Other FOSS Applications and Utilities
The most popular proprietary Office Application suite, used world wide is very expensive to purchase for tight budget enterprises and organizations. On the contrary, if you want to try out FOSS alternatives, you can check these applications:
- OpenOffice – https://www.openoffice.org
- Libre Office – https://www.libreoffice.org
Apart from these office applications, you can search for exhaustive list of FOSS alternatives of popular Proprietary software and tools at https://www.osalt.com/
FOSS Solution and Consultancy
FOSS is one major area where Cybrent Technology Solutions have a focus on. Our goal is to help Enterprises, Institutions and other Organizations minimize their expenditures spent on IT Infrastructure, by providing them support through FOSS Solutions.
If you own or belong to a Cyber Café, a School, Institute, Small Business, Large Enterprise, Non-Profit Organization and need a low cost but efficient IT Software Infrastructure, then you have reached the right door step. Feel free to contact us.