SillyDog701

[Antony]

There's an interesting website - SoftwareFor.org (Software for Starving Students), a free collection of applications organised for students (but available to anyone). They gathered a list of applications onto two CDs (one for OS X).

From FAQ, http://softwarefor.org/faq.html :

Q: Why do you do this?
A: The cost of a college education is always increasing -- usually faster than students can earn money. We hope our efforts will help lower students' software costs.

Q: How can this be free?
A: We obtain all of this software, legally free of charge, via the Internet. Most of it is open source, the rest is obtained and distributed by permission. It doesn't cost us anything but our time (for the most part), so we pass the good will on to you.

SillyDog701 would've used the term "cheap b*st*rds" instead.

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[Antony]

As usual, I have some comments.

In my opinion, the Software for Starving Students is
1. pointless
In their FAQ, they said, "We obtain all of this software, legally free of charge, via the Internet."

It's pointless to make the Software for Starving Students CD. Those starving students need to download the CD image files first. Since every software is available online, why not just provide links for starving students to download applications themselves? And hence save those starving students the cost of blank CDs, every cent counts.

2. using pirate's technology
They said, "We enthusiastically support the concept of free/open software and standards."
But they also embrace hackers'/priate's technology. P2P, BitTorrent is still considered the channel for pirated applications (warez), movies, music.

P2P (or BitTorrent) is nothing illegal, but the huge majority of P2P traffic is used for illegal file (copyrighted material) distributions a technology which should be killed.

Supporting the concept of free/open software then use technology that is best known for obtaining unlicensed copyright material... contradicting.

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