When Auza.Net started operations in Bohol in 2005, the company immediately started promoting the use of open source software as alternative to using pirated commercial software. At that time, it was a bit hard to convince Boholano users to move to Linux and OpenOffice.Org because the user interface of most Linux distributions were not that advanced yet.
This year, the Philippine Anti-Piracy Team has been cracking down small time and big time software pirates as reported on their website at www.papt.org.ph. They are catching violators from computer technicians installing pirated software to large corporations using pirated software in their main business operations. Penalties and imprisonment have been slapped to convicted violators. If your business is found using pirated software, all computers may be confiscated and used as evidence. That means your business could shutdown.
It’s no surprise that piracy is prevalent with software licenses increasing the cost of a computer significantly. Take for example, a popular operating system called Windows 7 will cost about Php 4,000 to Php6,000 per computer. The popular office productivity suite called MS Office will cost about Php11,000. The graphics software called Photoshop is at least Php30,000. Compare that with computer hardware costing as low as Php 12,000 without the operating system and office productivity software.
Fortunately, the Linux operating system has evolved very significantly in the last seven years. The OpenOffice.Org office productivity software is now also comparable to the commercial version. The graphics editing software called GIMP has improved very significantly also.
Users have a wide array of choices of which Linux distroy they would like to install. Old computers can still be utilized by using Linux distros targeted for systems with small memory and older CPUs. Other distros take advantage of faster CPUs and large memories providing the user of rich computing experience. There are distros for games, scientific computing and even multimedia systems.
This year’s OJT enrollees of Auza.Net will undergo training in the Linux and other open source technologies in the hope that they will help curb software piracy in Bohol without spending money for software licenses. We hope that in the foreseeable future, adoption of Linux technologies will help companies save money without becoming software pirates