[LINK] Shiver me timbers

[David Boxall]

<http://www.itnews.com.au/News/85542,opinion-shiver-me-timbers.aspx>
>
> Back in the days when real pirates roamed the seas it never occurred 
> to anyone to make the treasure cheaper so they’d stop bothering to 
> steal it.
>
> Fast-forward to modern times and Microsoft has trashed the price of 
> its Office suite – in China – to make it not worthwhile plundering.
>
> Back in the old days you couldn’t make treasure cheaper – it was worth 
> what it was worth. Which is why the whole analogy of software 
> counterfeiters as pirates falls into a gaping credibility hole. What 
> they’re stealing is only worth what the market will pay for it – 
> unlike real gold and real jewels.
>
> Microsoft already slashed the price mid-year and apparently they 
> shifted semi-trailer loads more copies of Office, so now they’ve 
> slashed harder, down to US$29 a copy for the “home and student” edition. 
...
> perhaps the price of all software ­– not just the stuff sold by 
> Microsoft – needs to fall to this level globally, before we can expect 
> the demise of the so-called pirates.
At that rate, I reckon the more commercially motivated will go and do 
something other than producing software.
...
> There are plenty of open source offerings, which are marketed as 
> “free” which cost that much and more to distribute in any form other 
> than as a download.
...
-- 
David Boxall | The more that wise people learn
| The more they come to appreciate
| How much they don't know.
--Confucius
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