Freedom Is the Addiction, Ubuntu the Gateway Drug March 21, 2007
Posted by Carthik in about, Friends Etc., ubuntu.trackback
It’s Ubuntu’s fault, really. If I hadn’t gotten started on the free software ride, I wouldn’t have any compunctions about stolen music. What’s 300 stolen albums when you’ve collected $2000+ in stolen software?
—K Mandla.
After using Ubuntu long enough, I too don’t see the need to use pirated software on Windows. I still use Windows XP at work/school. I get it for free, legally, from school. When that stops I will have to stop using it. On XP, I use The GIMP, VLC media player, and a host of other free alternatives. Life is good, light and joyful with free software.
Ubuntu Blog 
I totally agree. Years of using pirated windows, cracked sharewares, office, visual c++. And now none of that. *nix world is sure a beauty. no more guilt trips. no law being broken anywhere. peace in life 🙂
I totally agree. I noticed I knew nobody that used a legal microsoft office suite, and showed them the alternatives (open office, AbiWord, etc…), and already have convinced many of them to use the alternatives. Some even switched to Linux….:-).
Several times I dual booted Linux with little success, until Ubuntu. I have been an Ubuntu user for about a year and a half. No dual boot any more, I am committed to the free alternative.
Open Source has come of age (and is improving so quickly), making professional applications available for everyone – as they always should have been. Let us not forget the bugs in pirated proprietary software either. Give me an Open Source bug any time – at least you can get help.
My only gripe at the moment is that I still have to use MS Office at work. This is because the PivotTable functions in OpenOffice Calc is not up to the job and frankly, neither is Base as an Access alternative. I’m sure this will change in time.
I came from the other side of the fence, actually. I started looking for free software alternatives on windows XP and found, among other things, snapfiles.com and sourceforge which had everything I ever needed. This includes image editing, sound editing and video editing which I do a lot of.
After finding more and more useful programs as freeware eventually I got to the point where I thought, why not the OS as well?
So I installed Ubuntu on my laptop and I haven’t looked back.
When I was on Windows, I didn’t really care if people pirated MS software or not. Now that I am on Ubuntu, I do care. Every user pirating Windows or something else is one user NOT using Free/Libre alternatives. Enlighten them!
For me, it’s also more of a philosophy that just free software, and I like that. It feels as if I’m part of one, big community, which I wouldn’t want to hurt in any way.
One big, happy family, ay? 😀
I’m sorry to say so, but I haven’t still found free software for my work. I’m a software translator, and in this particular field we use translation memory software like SDLX or (worse) Trados. I know that there’s a couple of linux projects for translation software, but they are unusable for professional aims. Could you help me? I’d like to stop dual booting…
Life is good, light and joyful with free software.
—
And is also more moral, if the alternative would have been pidated software. But on Linux there are traps also, like w32codecs … so guard the freedom on the free land also.
Apart from freedom, the best part of it all is the community that comes along with it.
Ubuntu’s IRC channels and the forums are full of people who’re more than eager to help. This not only makes the journey towards freedom joyful, but also instills a desire to help others in the process.
Thanks ubuntu!
There’s a related run which goes like “Windows is the problem, Linux is the solution”. This is discussed in the context of arguments which involve head-to-head comparisons. Once must take account of both.
I’m lovin’ this site. I totally agree with the burst of the Open Source era. No more cracking – simutaneously grabbing trojans and other malware attemting to get the crackz…Won’t miss the work put into removing that crap either!!!
I mean..don’t get me wrong, it was well worth the pain of bandwidth slowdowns to use what I needed…when I needed it! Hmmm, also, more than anything, I got a crack for something I’d maybe only use once. Why pay full price?
May help the developers and vendors to chop-up the prices, just like in the music industry. Just pro-rate the appz per users needs and the masses won’t have to crack it open.
Linux + Opens Source = Life with Choices (Viva-La-Pro Choice)
Cracked vs. Free isn’t really a debate. That being said I’ve found places in my life for OS X (and a plethora of fairly expensive $1000+ software packages that can’t be compared to open source options) and Linux (both Ubuntu and Gentoo.)
In fact I’m anxiously waiting Ubuntu Studio. Anxiously.
Hey, I actually paid for the stuff – and it’s still a hassle, not even mentioning the dent in your pocketbook. Do you know how many digits a Photoshop or CorelDraw serial number is? Like 20. So when you get a new computer you have to keep track of all these things. When you upgrade each software app, you not only have a new long s/n, you need to enter the PREVIOUS version s/n as well. So I actually own Adobe CS2 on Windows XP. Well I got a new computer recently. Turns out CS2 doesn’t and won’t run on Windows Vista! But if you UPGRADE yet again to the new CS3 everything will be fine – only $495 or whatever it is. Well in short my new fast machine is UBUNTU only and I’m already running most of the Ub. Studio programs on it and it’s fantastic. What is keeping the rest of the world from seeing their emperor has no clothes?
In response to the question above, MS tie most manufacturers into shipping with MS, its used in businesses and schools. You MUST learn Windows to get on at school and find a devent job afterwards. Having learned Windows, most people don’t want to duplicate their efforts learning something else.
Also the Gimp is nowhere near as good as Windoze apps…. Open Office is not as usable as MS Office….. so for many people its a step backwards, and, most home users don’t pay for this stuff, they get it off the torrents / friends, so cost is not an issue, and cracks are not nearly as much hassle as a previous commenter suggests.
Piracy has significantly helped MS retain its market share. If people were really forced to fork out full price for this stuff then there would definitaly be more linux users out there.
As for the freedom thing, its only software… I use Windows and Linux in equal measure and have to say I don’t feel any more “freedom” when I’m using Linux then when I’m using Windows, they are both “tools” with respective strengths and weaknesses.
IMO the political ravings of OS enthusiasts merely re-enforces the view of the average windoze user that Linux is some ‘scary left field’ technology and puts them off using it.
If the truth be told, I think a lot of OS users like the fact that it is’nt main stream and, deep down want to keep it that way cos the like the ‘scene’, like being in the “1%”, like being ‘different’.
Ive even heard people criticising Ubuntu for being too easy, a “kiddies distribution”. Making Linux accessible to the masses is not what a lot of Linux users want, a strange state of affairs!!!
Personally I love Ubuntu having used Debian for some time on a server, its nice to have something so similar, and hassle free on my desktop…. 😉
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Yer, i used to use pireated software a bit, but why bother when Linux is around? and so many other great open source utils etc…
I dont like pirated software, but i don like microsoft either!
ooh neat. thanks!
I came from the other side of the fence, actually. I started looking for free software alternatives on windows XP and found, among other things, snapfiles.com and sourceforge which had everything I ever needed. This includes image editing, sound editing and video editing which I do a lot of.
When I was on Windows, I didn’t really care if people pirated MS software or not. Now that I am on Ubuntu, I do care. Every user pirating Windows or something else is one user NOT using Free/Libre alternatives. Enlighten them!
Freedom Is the Addiction, Ubuntu the Gateway Drug « Ubuntu Blog
When I was on Windows, I didn’t really care if people pirated MS software or not. Now that I am on Ubuntu, I do care. Every user pirating Windows or something else is one user NOT using Free/Libre alternatives. Enlighten them!
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