[Cdn-DMCA] CAAST calls for review of piracy penalties

[Kal Lin]

I do not argue that their are viable business models and successful
companies that use free software to compete against proprietary
companies.  According to consolidated statements for FY2002, Redhat 
makes slightly more than half their revenues selling subscriptions 
to the OS.  Redhat bought Cygnus.  I wouldn't have been surprised 
if Redhat bought StarOffice if Sun hadn't beat them to it.  Both 
MS and Redhat want to get paid to maintain the OS.  Their business 
models with respect to the operating system marketplace look the 
same to me.  Of course, Redhat is willing to share and cooperate 
with the rest of the world while MS isn't.

Let me just pull some wild guess numbers out of the air to make
another point.  Let's say 50% of all users know and pay the full 
TCO of their software.  Let's say 10% are complete free software 
converts and let's say much harsher penalties are going to cause 
the remaining 40% to do something.  Even if you get an even split 
on the 40%, you now have 70% of the users locked into an even 
tighter proprietary software world.  People will pay $300+ for 
MS Office forever, as long as there is a market for $30,000 reports 
written in MS Word.  Forcing the hand is a mistake when we are the 
much weaker side.  The more time we have to build more free software 
and make a more compelling case for users to switch the better.

I'm not saying we should condone an illegal activity.  However, I 
am saying we should not be supporting a witch hunt and helping
proprietary software makers put pressure on users.

Cheers,
--Kal


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