Re: Lack of pirated software - dealbreaker?
 

I'm %100 sure there will be pirated software for the N900 when companies start writing applications/games for it. :p

Re: Lack of pirated software - dealbreaker?
 

Based on the Nintendo cease-and-desist over emulators, I doubt any pirated apps will make it into formal repositories (or at least last there very long) so that relegates them to third-party repos where they may or may not receive sufficient attention.

But as others have said, it's Linux, it's open, theoretically we don't need no stinking cracks. So let's turn theory into reality. ;)

Re: Lack of pirated software - dealbreaker?
 

Let me share my perception:
peoples in asia, or any poorer countries, doesn't mean to pirate software. they just cant afford. that's the case for expensive software, like windows or something. but if the software is affordable, there's another barrier: the payment system. who cant afford a few dollars worth of software if they can buy $600 devices? very few of them. but when they want to use their credit card, most of their cards are blacklisted. just remember when i wanted to buy books from amazon, my visa card is not accepted. paying from paypal is a workaround. but what a hassle!

Re: Lack of pirated software - dealbreaker?
 

Why would your card be blacklisted? There isn't such a thing as "blacklisted" cards. Either it works, and is trusted (as in, your bank vouches for you) or it doesn't, and no matter where you'll try to use it, it will fail.[1]

There is a huge difference between trusted cards and trusted addresses. Yes, people will often be reluctant to send goods to specific countries because they think fraud might be involved, however this has nothing to do with the payment type.[1]

Again, at this point in time there are literally no applications that require any sort of payment for them. If you want GPS and such, I'm sure Maemo Mapper and those kind of applications will grow dramatically over the coming months. As texrat said, there is, at this point, not even a need to consider piracy, as there are no commercial applications available that do not have an Open Source equivalent.

[1]: Source: I work in security, and deal with banks (and implement their payment systems and payment authentication systems) on a daily basis.

Re: Lack of pirated software - dealbreaker?
 

there will be very few commercial applications for this platform. cuz any commercial application will be faced with a 100 open source alternative.
this means commercial applications will need to be extremely good to stand out.
remember, this is not mainstream platform. the n900 is not a phone for the average joe

Re: Lack of pirated software - dealbreaker?
 

I thought this thread was a satire and poked my nose in here to have a good laugh.

There's no satire, but I'm still laughing. Go figure!

:P

Re: Lack of pirated software - dealbreaker?
 

Reminds me of the Atari vs. Amiga discussion back in school, 20 years ago.

When somebody did buy a home computer, the decision was not based on whether Atari or Amiga is better (not that there was a big difference).

The decision was exclusively based on which computer all your friends and classmates had. Because that's where you could get the games from.

Belive me, I know what I'm talking about. You can't imagine how stupid I felt when I got an Amiga for Christmas, while all my friend had an Atari. ;)

Re: Lack of pirated software - dealbreaker?
 

to clarify my post, i also had my card NOT ACCEPTED by yahoo when i used it to buy domain name. so i used paypal. it seems like merchants are limiting where the cards come from, not banks.

Re: Lack of pirated software - dealbreaker?
 

Yeah but you didn't have to deal with TOS - and you had all those lovely miggy custom chips ;)

Piracy will be piracy, no matter what platform.

Re: Lack of pirated software - dealbreaker?
 

For me though, the decision was solely based on what I could do with it, as a programmer. So I only looked at specifications. Did that, all the way back to my first computer. Oh, and the biggest decision maker of all (although not one I had wanted): The price! :) Which always forced me to not get what I really wanted, from a tech specification point of view.