Piracy
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DVD players and movies are in abundance in the UK. There are loads of DVD enabled households in the UK now. almost every new PC bought has a DVD drive. Probably not as much as the US because there even your dog will have a PC of their own. .NET or not .NET? MFC is the question......
Thank you for replying to this thread. It was my first and i was suprised to see such a large number of replies! Keep em coming! .NET or not .NET? MFC is the question......
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Jonny Newman wrote: MS should release a version of VC++ for students I thought that there already was a cheaper standard edition that had less features. Also aren't students entitled to large discounts anyway. A quick look at ProgrammersParadise.com shows a standard edition for $95.99 and a professional edition for $488.99 - well within the price range of anybody who is serious about being a developer. Jonny Newman wrote: Plus MS are losing a lot of money through the outrageous price of Visual Studio When you look at the software that you get in Visual Studio, you'll find the price is very cheap. Michael :-)
Michael P Butler wrote: I thought that there already was a cheaper standard edition that had less features. Also aren't students entitled to large discounts anyway. Yep students get a nice discount, even better if your college takes up some site licensing deal with MS. I bought my copy of VC6.0 and VB6.0 (both pro) off from ebay for $70 each. This was when it just came out, so it was a steep discount. The software was marked for academic only, so I violated no laws there (I was a junior or senior in high school at the time). I heard that MS has been doing some strict policing of eBay to keep its software off from there now. There are sites out there dedicated to selling only to acadamia though, so that pretty much replaces eBay. James Sonork ID: 100.11138 - Hasaki [Edit: Oops, I deleted the </i> by accident]
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Nish [BusterBoy] wrote: but I assume that a decent software engineer gets at least UK currency 6000 per month If wishes were horses.... Thats a *very* big assumption (£72000 a year before tax). When I started at my current post (8 years ago), I started as a graduate with 3 years experience (some before I went to university), I was on £12000 a year. Thats 1/6th what you estimate. Although my lot has improved somewhat since then (I can't give yo the exact total - company politics, suffice to say its not even close to 50% of what you suggest). I don't know what taxes are like in india, but we lose 1/3 automatically through tax and national insurance contributions etc. I stick with my current job because of: 1. Its technically challenging 2. I am always learning. 3. Its not just software, I get to play with chemistry and new hardware. 4. I enjoy my work. 5. We play games on the LAN. :-D 6. I get reasonably well rewarded for my efforts. 7. A get a PC upgrade about once a year (currently using an 800Mhz system - other developers here are using 1.6 GHz systems) It would be good if we could all get paid what were worth. Roger Allen Sonork 100.10016
Hmmm Well, Roger the average S/W engineer earns around Rs 10,000/Rs 20,000 per month That will be between US$217-434 Anyone wanna work in India now???? Nish Sonork ID 100.9786 voidmain www.busterboy.org If you don't find me on CP, I'll be at Bob's HungOut
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Hmmm Well, Roger the average S/W engineer earns around Rs 10,000/Rs 20,000 per month That will be between US$217-434 Anyone wanna work in India now???? Nish Sonork ID 100.9786 voidmain www.busterboy.org If you don't find me on CP, I'll be at Bob's HungOut
Wow! How does that compare to the cost of living? What does it cost, for instance, to keep a roof over your head? To buy food for a week? Here, for example, even though I live in a low-cost area, rents run $600 to $800 a month, food about $60 a week, assuming one never dines out. Lunch costs $5 to $8 each day, and we pay around $400 a month for transportation ( auto payments, maintenance, and required insurance). That's not lavish living, by the way - it's about 10% above subsistence level, say lower middle class. And, of course, the government steals about 40% of the gross before the check is ever printed. About $100 to $200 a month less means homelessness, and little chance of ever recovering. Most people have no health insurance, and God help them if they ever take ill. More sadly, most people here make far less than I do, working as mechanics, fry cooks, waiters, and such. What does it take to live moderately in India? I was sad that I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet...
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Jonny Newman wrote: MS should release a version of VC++ for students I thought that there already was a cheaper standard edition that had less features. Also aren't students entitled to large discounts anyway. A quick look at ProgrammersParadise.com shows a standard edition for $95.99 and a professional edition for $488.99 - well within the price range of anybody who is serious about being a developer. Jonny Newman wrote: Plus MS are losing a lot of money through the outrageous price of Visual Studio When you look at the software that you get in Visual Studio, you'll find the price is very cheap. Michael :-)
Michael P Butler wrote: I thought that there already was a cheaper standard edition that had less features. Also aren't students entitled to large discounts anyway. Michael, You are correct. Visual Studio Professional in college (in UCLA anyway) is about US $200. Though, for whatever reason, I know a lot of my peers (BTW, I am a Computer Science & Engineering undergraduate that will graduate this March) get pirated versions of Visual Studio. Even worse, they look at me as the "weird" one because I buy my software and not download them from some warez site. Sometimes, it's hard to say "what comes around goes around", because I believe that I can't honestly code software and market it and practice this type of behavior. Unfortunately, I have to conclude that the attitude here (probably in the whole USA also) is that piracy is acceptable and that privacy rights will protect any single individual from ever suffering consequences from downloading pirated software. The same is taken with MP3's here. Moreover, some bureaucrats who seem to forget how the US economy flourishes based on business, not the convenience of products. It seems that many people (unfortunately, many Open-Source activists) are trying to undo the saying "There's no such thing as a free lunch". The scuffle with the Open Source Community and Altera's CEO Ransom is one prime example of their views. Michael P Butler wrote: Plus MS are losing a lot of money through the outrageous price of Visual Studio When you look at the software that you get in Visual Studio, you'll find the price is very cheap. I agree. Just think about the times when you had to buy and TCP/IP stack before Windows 95. Also, before Windows, the OS that dominated the market would be some expensive Sun system. Either way, I think a lot have forgotten what progress MS has made over the years and just make arguments out of convenience. OK, I think I've put a lot of my own opinions and frustrations out here. I wonder if this will fall on deaf ears like it usually does. Frank
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Wow! How does that compare to the cost of living? What does it cost, for instance, to keep a roof over your head? To buy food for a week? Here, for example, even though I live in a low-cost area, rents run $600 to $800 a month, food about $60 a week, assuming one never dines out. Lunch costs $5 to $8 each day, and we pay around $400 a month for transportation ( auto payments, maintenance, and required insurance). That's not lavish living, by the way - it's about 10% above subsistence level, say lower middle class. And, of course, the government steals about 40% of the gross before the check is ever printed. About $100 to $200 a month less means homelessness, and little chance of ever recovering. Most people have no health insurance, and God help them if they ever take ill. More sadly, most people here make far less than I do, working as mechanics, fry cooks, waiters, and such. What does it take to live moderately in India? I was sad that I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet...
Well actually the cost of living is not really high in India, or at least in Trivandrum, where I live. But the standards of living aren't too high generally too. I am staying at a rented house - a drawing room, a dining room, a kitchen [with a toilet -> for the cook I guess], a store-room, two bath-attached bedrooms, one non-attached bedroom. I pay Rs 3,500 per month which is approx equal to $76 which is kinda cheap I guess. But the problem comes when computers and other hi-tech goods are concerned. Like a decent desktop computer with decent RAM and a 17" monitor would cost Rs 60,000 [if you buy it from a local assembler] and would cost Rs 90,000 if you buy it from a branded vendor. The average Indian programmer makes between 8,000-15,000 Indian rupees and as you can obviously see, it's beyond his buying capacity. A decent laptop will cost more than Rs 110,000. As for meals, well you can get a decent meal for about Rs 50 if you are non-veg and Rs 20 if you are a vegetarian guy. A low-end car would cost Rs 250,000; a medium level car would cost Rs 800,000 and really costly one like a Mercedes Benz or a BMW would cost upwards of Rs 2,800,000 for the lower models and about Rs 4,000,000 for the really high-end models. My dad has a PAL Peugeot 309 which he bought 5-6 years ago. Then it cost Rs 750,000 which would be more than 5 years of my current salary. I better stop now with this rant :-) Sonork ID 100.9786 voidmain www.busterboy.org If you don't find me on CP, I'll be at Bob's HungOut
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Michael P Butler wrote: When you look at the software that you get in Visual Studio, you'll find the price is very cheap I dont know about that Michael. You are from UK right. Well I dont know about normal UK salaries but I assume that a decent software engineer gets at least UK currency 6000 per month. That will be Indian Rs. 450,000/ which will be more than 3 years of my current pay. I think the MSDN universal subscription costs US$3000 which will be more than an year's salary for me. So Indians have to be pirates I am not saying that it's a nice thing. But as long as I am not killing someone or I am not poisoning bill gates or I am causing him undue financial trouble, I simply dont see why I should not buy a pirated MSDN CD for Rs 600 from some chinese CD smuggler Nish Sonork ID 100.9786 voidmain www.busterboy.org If you don't find me on CP, I'll be at Bob's HungOut
Nish wrote: I simply don't see why I should not buy a pirated MSDN CD for Rs 600 from some chinese CD smuggler Oh, come on, don't blame us Chinese for this. In fact, we learned a lot from the Indians. ;) But we are much better at justifying our actions. :) Here are some (I heard while visiting home): In the very beginning, there was no rules against piracy (of ideas, books, etc.). The western countries used inventions of the Indians, the Chinese, and the Egyptians for ages without paying a dime. They got ahead of us and then tried to establish rules to keep us from catching up. Just as the former prime minister of Singapore said: Every time you beat them in their own game, they will try to change the rules!