In today's software, there are 2 (or may be 3) way of availing a package; namely freeware and proprietary software (we will refer to this class of software as software for brevity) and the third type is somewhere between this two extreme: shareware.
The concern is not generally on price, but the freedom you get even after you buy a software. Most often then not, you have to be happy with a executable and not the source code, so your sky is narrower from the point you buy one. You can't share it with your dad's PC. If each of your family member got his/her own PC/laptop and each of them need a certain software, you have to buy it individually. The best known example is, perhaps, Microsoft products.
Ever wonder what is the way out? How can you do the same thing you do with those of software? Yeah, there are a lot, and actually the are even better in some sense then what you got in exchange to your bucks: The FREEWARE.
Just to make you belief, use openoffice (a sun product). The graphics may not be the same, but you can do almost all you ever want to do with its proprietary competitor. With an added freedom. Just to give a small example (rather trivial), the city where I live, changed her name from Calcutta to Kolkata. But some package still contains the name Calcutta. What you will do with Ms....nothing! you have to accept it and wait for the developers to correct it. While with free source softwares I use, I just go to the source and change the name.....thats it, and as simple. Or, while making a presentation, I can choose a banner to come in header of every slide.....I don't need to do that each time, or with each presentation.
And there is always other issues like backword compatibility so that you are forced to buy latest edition each time even you are sure that you are not going to use added features. what more!! read this web on windows7sins.
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