Dr John describes in The INQ goes on the trail of Chinese pirates how he attempted to buy legitimate software in Shenzhen. Unable to find any in even official stores, he ends up buying ten software packages for about US$10, including AutoCAD 2006.
It's interesting that copied software is so prevalent that legitimate software licences can't be bought.
In a similar light: for people who don't live in the 1st world it's cheaper to buy pirated than to download:
http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=116907
Posted by: Nicolas | Feb 12, 2007 at 04:46 AM
"It's interesting that copied software is so prevalent that legitimate software licences can't be bought."
We have a similar situation here in India. Even if we can buy software, it cannot be bought off the shelf, at least the not-so-common software. Hardly anyone stocks software here. We have to be pay for it in full, then the reseller will place an order, which gets routed out to Singapore or some other place. I remember I had to wait for almost 2 months to get my Visual Studio 2005 box. Its a good thing that Microsoft has a 90 day trial, otherwise I would have to get hold of a pirated copy to avoid disrupting my workflow.
Things are changing here. A lot has been done, but a lot needs to be done. It will take time, a lot of time.
Posted by: Deelip Menezes | Feb 12, 2007 at 06:49 AM
Deelip,
How is support in India? One good reason to get legal software is for the support. So, using VS2005 as an example, how good is MS's support for you?
On a a side note, I suspect that most pirated software never gets used. Who has time to learn ten CAD appliations?
--Tony
Posted by: Tony in SV | Feb 12, 2007 at 08:25 AM