> I agree here... If they wanted to stop the unauthorized copies that run > rampant at universities, especially, they could today. Its not a hard > technical problem. They don't, because they know that what people learn > to use in school is what they will ask their future employers to buy. > If they stopped the piracy of photoshop, for example, a few years from > now, they would have a whole new crop of graphic artists with no need to > purchase it at their jobs, because they would be using free or cheaper > alternatives. Its a simple business decision. I agree that they don't fight very hard to keep their users from growing (we all know people get stuck on software and once learned won't switch). I would be interested in how many students purchase the Student Discount versions vs. Pirated copies used instead. I know when I was in school I purchased software with the student discount since it was within my price range (due to the discount). I'd think a lot of students do this since it's most often paid with loan money and picked up along with books. Acrobat keeps "save as acrobat file" from word so you have to buy the bloated Acrobat Full version. Cell phone companies don't have a nice little application built into the phone to warn you when you're getting close to going over on minutes. It's all to control the cash flow for them and really upsets me. I think it's going to be a bit of a struggle to get FOSS classes at a lot of universities for the simple fact that Adobe and Microsoft are already in heavy use. Get FOSS used by more companies (and noticed by the universities) or students to start demanding classes and perhaps classes would be offered. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20060828/be137e7d/attachment.htm