Increase Innovation in Trinidad by Cracking Down on Piracy - My first article

[betty]

So I today i decided to try out writing for a blog so this is my first article. Give it a read lemme know what you thoughts are.

http://www.blogtechnical.com/1342/increase-innovation-in-trinidad-by-cracking-down-on-piracy.bt

[UltimateGamer]

Believe me when i say copyright does not affect us local software developers in Trinidad in terms of preventing us from being innovative (or promoting innovation). But i do agree with entertainment industry bit nonetheless.

Oh and not bad for a first blog post.

[betty]

Thanks man. But i mean if you were to develop any software locally and decided to promote it to the masses, their alternative to paying for your new product is a variety of free software via torrents , cracks etc. Wouldn't knowing that hamper a lot of people from investing time, money etc into the development and promotion of any kind of product?

[UltimateGamer]

You would think so, but that's really how companies think. Software developers don't expect to become rich when developing something... lets use the word 'beneficial'. What you find is that we take our idea open source, make it free, and do things like take donations and/or bundle ads. Its thanks to individuals seeking to attain innovation you find more people using open source/freeware vs buying the original. For almost any commercially available software out there, there's a free alternative (almost).

For instance, from a development standpoint, microsoft technologies vs php/apache config for web. MS technologies are expensive when you look at the cost of the ide's which usually have a new version every 2 years. PHP, Java etc all have freely available full featured ide's and deployment bundles making it relatively cheap to use.

Another example from a consumer standpoint is microsoft office. A fine alternative to that is open office (by java) free and open source that does the exact same thing as msoffice, even opens the various file types created by office.

So pirating software locally won't quite stifle innovation in software development. Smart software developers know better that doing something for the somewhat selfish reason of making money. Like i said, that's just how companies think, not developers.

[TriniXaeno]

Some massive generalizations being made here.

I am certain it would affect some developers. Others may pay no attention to it and work fueled by passion instead of a pay check but not all.

Good article though.

Can we use it for the home page?

[betty]

Sure, would be an honor.

[UltimateGamer]

Don't get me wrong wyatt I'm not saying developers don't work or want to work for money, I'm simply saying that most developers who have an innovative idea usually turn it to open source. If said developer belongs to a business or is doing it on behalf of a business, then that's when the focus really becomes money. But the ~1.3 mil population of trinidad ain't no where near the size market (when u get down to it) that could fuel development and maintainance of an innovative app. From an insider's perspective, the only thing that funds those kind of apps are companies who hire developers to build an app for them and that will usually never see the light of a pirate since its usually for their business.

[TriniXaeno]

Because of the ecosystem Betty described, that's precisely why things are that way.

Let me give you another example.

A few years ago, small games were being pirated to kingdom come. A dead market.

You needed a behemoth of a game with epic marketing, killer multiplayer and DRM to stand a chance against the pirates....and even then, you'd be shot down by legitimate users for the difficulties that come along with DRM implementations.

Developers were closing doors left right and center.

Fast forward to Apple marketplace.

Developers now have a thriving ecosystem where people will pay $1 or $2 for their games.

A ready market.

All of a sudden, there is ton of development activity in the mobile space.

Likewise, I believe if the same is done for software in general in Trinidad, we will see similar focus.

The solution may not lie in legislation but rather in a technology or platform solution.

Building apps into the cloud for example. SaaS.

Imagine an accounting app that handles local Tax and Payroll factors. Not offered on disk but as an integrated online application. You sign in via your browser.

Nothing to pirate.

Google Apps is already creating something of a marketplace for apps of that nature that want to ride on their platform.

As is facebook

And certainly the other platforms that will come after them.

Food for thought

[UltimateGamer]

I have to admit though I wasn't thinking web and mobile in my above scenarios. I hardly see piracy affecting those platforms (Especially web). I was more thinking windows program/application. That was actually quite strictly what mentioned above was based on.

So i'm just saying, if piracy doesn't too much affect the mobile/web development market, then what exactly are we discussing here
 

[TriniXaeno]

I have to admit though I wasn't thinking web and mobile in my above scenarios. I hardly see piracy affecting those platforms (Especially web).

That is precisely the problem and the solution in a nutshell.

So a subsequent article could be titled: Increase software innovation in Trinidad by promoting development on mobile and SaaS platforms.

Microsoft is fully aware of the explosion in the mobile and cloud space and have been positioning their apps accordingly. As well as acquiring big players who are already in the game (both on the software and hardware side).

This paradigm shift presents an opportunity that didn't exist before. One that is considerably resistant to piracy.

[betty]

Hmm @ idea for follow up article