Software Distribution on the Internet :: Essays Papers

Software Distribution on the Internet As society has come to terms with the ever widening use of the computer, people are starting to ask themselves should everything on the computer or internet be free for them to download? The ethics of our society are tested to see if they will be chosen to become one of the ever-widen population, that downloads this free software off the internet and uses it to benefit their computers and their wallets. I will be researching some websites that offer free software links on the internet, and also will be looking at pirated software off the internet that allows people to download software without having to buy it. On a recent search for "free software", at the website http://www.yahoo.com/, I found over two thousand websites that either distributed or provided links to free software on the Internet. Most of the software was available in one of two forms: shareware and freeware. Shareware is the term given too many trial versions, versions with a time limit that allows you to try it for free, with send-payment if you decide to keep it. Freeware is the name given to software that is distributed, with full knowledge and consent of the owner, in its entirety. [1] An example of this kind of software is the LINUX operating system. The LINUX operating system was invented by Linus Torvalds, one of the world’s best computer programmers. Fed up with the MS-DOS system in the PC’s in the early 1990’s, he started his own operating system and it took off like a rocket. â€Å"I had no idea what I was doing. I knew I was the best programmer in the world. Every 21-year-old programmer knows that. â€Å"How hard can it be, it’s just an operating system?†Ã¢â‚¬  [2] Furthermore he made his software available for the public to download this software off the internet, and spark the evolution of the open source software era, where people can just take whatever they want and making the Software companies feel the damages, because everyone is stealing their software instead of buying it. I also conducted a search for "pirated software" at http://www.yahoo.com/. The results of this search gave me over 1800 listings. The majority of these sites have only one purpose. That is to distribute illegally copied versions of software programs. These software programs are usually found exactly as one would find them if they had purchased them from a store.