Week 3a~Literature Review

Assignment 4

Salam and hello guys!

Me and my partner, Nor Syuhada Che Muda, still doing the activities of THINK, PAIR, SHARE . For this task, we need to do a literature review, which the topic is related to our first assignment Original and Licensing Software .  We need to plan, search, evaluate and select information from two journal articles from UKM subscription research database, one article from google scholar and one more from book.google.com..below are our content of the literature review..

THE PROBLEMS FACED IN USING ORIGINAL AND LICENSING SOFTWARE

Software can be divided into three major types, which consists of original licensed software, open source software and pirated software.

Original software is organized information in the form of operating systems, utilities, programs, and applications that enable computers to work. Without it, your computer will not perform any function. However, a lot of users prefer to use the piracy software since it is a lot cheaper and easier to install. In Malaysia only, the statistics of crime of software piracy rate was 59 per cent from 107 countries. (SOURCE: Fifth Annual BSA and IDC Global Software Piracy Study).

License software is a legal device governing the usage or redistribution of software. Software licensing has been abide by a trust in which the user is assume to be honest and stay on by the agreement and terms applied. This license software always come together with the software product in order to explain the term of use to the end-users. The program codes might be to install and maybe use as a back up copy on the computer.

The problem faced in licensing software is that the unscrupulous users will take advantages to make many copies of the software codes and install it into another computers. From here, we can see that the code of the license can just simply copied by the users. This is because there is the thought among the citizens that, it is fine to distribute the copies of the software . Besides, they don't even seem to realize that piracy is the worse thing to do in our country. The piracy here means, the participation in the unauthorized use or distribution in which you lend, give, copy or sell the software to anyone without owner's permission.

In the other hand, the problem also occurs in original software when the pirated software can be only downloaded online for free. We might begin by examining the principle of fairness and justice. Is using software illegally something we would regard as fair if the roles were reversed and we were the company selling the software? Indirectly, it gives a headache and causing the hair on the software inventors turns to grey just because of the users, who abuse and make illegal copies of their work. Because of this issues, they also loss a billion US dollar. Such companies devote a large portion of their earnings to the creation of new software products.

There are solutions for every problem. If we cannot defeat it, we still can protect it. That is what was suggested by experts to overcome this issue. To protect the original software from pirate software, there are three different levels of category. Firstly, the protection against a user, who duplicating a program for the use of a friend. To cope with it, the anti-piracy should increase the cost of copying equal with the cost of purchasing the program on the reliable market. Secondly, is the protection against copying for resale. In order to preclude it, the software ought to be cheaper. Then, the pirate one need to modify the program wholly than copying from the original one and if there is a risk for criminal records, still the cost is the same like the rewrite cost. Last but not least, the third one is about the protection of an algorithm that must be kept secret. It might be because of the program that use for the defence system of a nation.

Another solutions that should be taken to reduce this problem from happen is that the awareness among the Malaysians should be enhanced as to make them realize the disadvantages of using pirate software in their life. We always listen to the campaign of against piracy in entertainment production, but how about piracy in software systems as we are revolved around the use of technology in this computer era? So this awareness must to be instilled in ourselves first.

Here are the steps that should be taken in order to avoid illegal copying software among others:

• First, get rid of any illegal software you might have inadvertently received. In this way you won't be viewed as a role model who says it is OK to use pirated software.
• Find the resources to purchase those software packages you really need for work and for your personal use. With legal copies of software, you will get user support. Thus, it will help you to avoid potentially severe legal penalties; and, most of all, you will be acting ethically.
• Next, when friends or colleagues ask for a copy of your software, invite them to sit at your computer and try yours.
• offer to help them acquire a legal copy.

In a nutshell, it is not wrong to purchase an original licensed software since it will peace your mind from any doubt about quality and concern about legal issues for the company, free from virus, free from faults like malware, spy ware and etc. You also can stay up-to-date to the software. However, the choice is yours.

References

Korzeniowski, P. (1993). Software Lisencing. InfoWorld.

Misra, P. K. (1998). Patent No. 6189146. United States.

Sathish Candra, Francesco Regazzoni, Marcello Dajolo. (2006). Hardware/software partitioning of operating systems: a behavioral synthesis approach. GLSVLSI '06 Proceedings of the 16th ACM Great Lakes symposium on VLSI, 324.

Tim Maude,Derwent Maude . (Sept. 1984). Hardware protection against software piracy. Communications of the ACM Volume 27 Issue 9, 950.

From this task, i gain many knowledge such as getting information from Google scholar and books. I do not know that we can get to read the books that was sold at the store without purchased it. Plus, my understanding about this topic, The Original and Licensing Software, also was improving and advancing. As a girl, we do not care about the computer, software stuff ..but because of this course, i feel fortunate for knowing about it now..that all from from this week. Sit back and relax for more update from me~~~