7 ms·

"Kids in their bedrooms" had cracked versions of MSVC. Even at my school, I don't remember a single student paying for any software. Teachers were obviously aw

by GuB-42 6y ago

"Kids in their bedrooms" had cracked versions of MSVC. Even at my school, I don't remember a single student paying for any software. Teachers were obviously aware of that and while they didn't encourage piracy openly, when they showed something on a high priced software, "go ahead and get the cracked version if you don't already have it" was almost implied. We also worked with Linux and free software a lot, that's just to say that price never was an issue, because we didn't pay. It is debatable but I think publisher were happy with that situation, students wouldn't pay in any way, they might as well learn on tools that their future employers will have to pay for. Things have changed. Most notably, the primary way of monetization is online services now. Software is often given away for free and piracy is either pointless (because free software) or much harder (because a large part of it is online). As for charging for dev tooling, yes, it is hard, because charging for software is hard. That is, unless you have an online service component. That's a reason why "collaborative" tools are so popular now.

judge2020 6y ago
Adobe CC apps used to be so easy to pirate, but recently Adobe has been going hard on anti-piracy detections (I imagine it is indeed getting abused by some businesses somewhere). I was under the assumption that a majority of their mindshare was from high school kids learning on cracked adobe then asking for licensed creative cloud apps at work.
- katbyte 6y ago
  I’ve also noticed the rise in Adobe alternatives over the last few years so must be working
  - vagrantJin 6y ago
    This times 100. The open source alternatives are ridiculously good. Figma and Blender are the ones I use and we've made some extensions for specific jobs painlessly. The free stack is even catching up where paid software used to excel - modern, usable UI. We're happy to drop a few hundred on donations.
    - jameshart 6y ago
      Figma is not open... not open source, or even file format.
pmiller2 6y ago
At my school, about 10 years ago, any student who was either a CS major or taking any CS class got free access to full versions of pretty much every MS product except enterprise versions. That’s full versions of Windows, .Net, SQL Server, Office, you name it. There was no need for anyone to pirate anything.
- lmm 6y ago
  You have to jump through a bunch of hoops, if you even know about what's there. You have to make sure the right thing is registered in the right way, and if something's broken down in the link between your university's login setup and MS's setup then good luck getting someone to fix it as a student. It's actually a huge difference in practice from what you get with open-source (or piracy): download the thing and run it, that's it.
  - roytries 6y ago
    All you need(ed) was an e-mail address that ended in @myuniversity.tld and use that in the registration at the shop.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    No, not really. I remember it being dead simple when I was there.
    - Dirlewanger 6y ago
      I think the bigger point is: unless your teachers told you, you most likely didn't know that Microsoft offered free versions to students. Someone had to consciously know about the Dreamspark program or whatever it was called because Microsoft themselves don't even widely advertise it.
  - znpy 6y ago
    It's a pointless argument. You had access to all the software with a regular student license, it was obviously never meant for any production workload and never meant to be covered with any kind of support. Since piracy was/is the norm, you might as well provide a few version.
bitwize 6y ago
For me it was my dad's friend who worked as an enterprise Microsoft dev, and would give me his old MSDN CDs when he was finished using them. So I got Windows NT, Visual Studio, and complete API documentation -- even Windows 95 when it came out.
Swenrekcah 6y ago
I would never pay for dev tooling as a SaaS because it would put me completely at the mercy of the provider. I’d be happy to, and do, pay for some dev tools that I get to own for life. The Jetbrains model is really a great match I think for both the company and the customer.

by GuB-42 6y ago

judge2020 6y ago

Adobe CC apps used to be so easy to pirate, but recently Adobe has been going hard on anti-piracy detections (I imagine it is indeed getting abused by some businesses somewhere). I was under the assumption that a majority of their mindshare was from high school kids learning on cracked adobe then asking for licensed creative cloud apps at work.

katbyte 6y ago
I’ve also noticed the rise in Adobe alternatives over the last few years so must be working
- vagrantJin 6y ago
  This times 100. The open source alternatives are ridiculously good. Figma and Blender are the ones I use and we've made some extensions for specific jobs painlessly. The free stack is even catching up where paid software used to excel - modern, usable UI. We're happy to drop a few hundred on donations.
  - jameshart 6y ago
    Figma is not open... not open source, or even file format.

pmiller2 6y ago

At my school, about 10 years ago, any student who was either a CS major or taking any CS class got free access to full versions of pretty much every MS product except enterprise versions. That’s full versions of Windows, .Net, SQL Server, Office, you name it. There was no need for anyone to pirate anything.

lmm 6y ago
You have to jump through a bunch of hoops, if you even know about what's there. You have to make sure the right thing is registered in the right way, and if something's broken down in the link between your university's login setup and MS's setup then good luck getting someone to fix it as a student. It's actually a huge difference in practice from what you get with open-source (or piracy): download the thing and run it, that's it.
- roytries 6y ago
  All you need(ed) was an e-mail address that ended in @myuniversity.tld and use that in the registration at the shop.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  No, not really. I remember it being dead simple when I was there.
  - Dirlewanger 6y ago
    I think the bigger point is: unless your teachers told you, you most likely didn't know that Microsoft offered free versions to students. Someone had to consciously know about the Dreamspark program or whatever it was called because Microsoft themselves don't even widely advertise it.
- znpy 6y ago
  It's a pointless argument. You had access to all the software with a regular student license, it was obviously never meant for any production workload and never meant to be covered with any kind of support. Since piracy was/is the norm, you might as well provide a few version.

bitwize 6y ago

For me it was my dad's friend who worked as an enterprise Microsoft dev, and would give me his old MSDN CDs when he was finished using them. So I got Windows NT, Visual Studio, and complete API documentation -- even Windows 95 when it came out.

Swenrekcah 6y ago

I would never pay for dev tooling as a SaaS because it would put me completely at the mercy of the provider. I’d be happy to, and do, pay for some dev tools that I get to own for life. The Jetbrains model is really a great match I think for both the company and the customer.