In an industry dependent on intellectual property, Microsoft’s fight against “theft” has implications beyond the bottom line. “Intellectual property is a critical engine of economic growth,” says Microsoft’s anti-piracy chief, “That’s not just for large companies, but also for small businesses and entire countries. We work with governments that are realizing this is in their best interests.”
If Microsoft (through resellers) would just start selling activation codes instead of software, we could just check md5/sha1 on their software and wouldn’t have to worry about all this other stuff (slipstreamed malware and what not).
But they need people to get hooked on it first, so they need to have a loophole.
And silly governments if they let them selfs be bullied into doing this, this is what a dependency on an external entity like Microsoft.
Edited 2010-11-09 00:00 UTC
FTA:
I’d agree that software is a critical engine of economic growth. The concept of “Intellectual Property” that Mr Finn is talking about is however a pure unadulterated cost for most people, business, organisations, governments and indeed entire countries.
Governments should be able to work out by now that it is very much in their best interests to simply avoid using the software that Mr Finn is promoting. They can get the same functionality for themselves and for their people and at the same time completely avoid the etire “dog and pony show” that Mr Finn is trying to escalate.
I voted you up before posting to ask this simple question: why is Linux a low-market share OS in Africa (close to 0% in my home country) and more generally in developing countries? I see Linux here in France everywhere I turn my head, people talk about it, some go as far as looking like they pledged loyalty, I even have Ubuntu 10.04 dual-booting on my server-wanna-be XP-powered laptop. But over there, it’s really weird that Linux is (off the top of my mind and without hard numbers, which are impossible to get anyway) close to 0% whereas piracy rate of Windows is close to 100%.
It suppose it depends on exactly which part of Africa you are talking about.
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/software/14254-Linux-big.html
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS5247302500.html
There are some important names associated with Linux which have links to Africa.
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/biography
No shortage of work in South Africa:
http://www.indeed.co.za/Linux-Administrator-jobs-in-South-Africa
I’m not sure of the vintage of this page:
http://www.linux.org.za/
The South Africa government has championed Linux, open source and open standards for quite some time now.
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Major_OpenOffice.org_Deplo…
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Major_OpenOffice.org_Deplo…
However, Microsoft has a significant campaign mounted in South Africa to try to suppress its adoption there:
http://techrights.org/2010/09/14/mark-and-darlene-on-microsoft/
This is no different to what is going on in many parts of the world. Microsoft is not going to give in without a huge and dirty fight.
Edited 2010-11-09 13:46 UTC
In travels to Peru I got an answer for this that makes sense: brand recognition. Residents with access to imported goods want exactly what first-world countries use. Even if they can’t tell the difference between a fake (for clothing items), market research is ignored versus “a good name”.
I suppose they haven’t seen the pains of corporations with advertising budgets and instead of quality. And “consumer ratings groups” reach hasn’t made it there.
Better hardware support. Computers in the developing world are crazy f-d up machines that have been discarded by the first world. Windows for all its security flaws, works pretty well on almost anything made in the past 8 years or so. There are still odd hardware quirks that prevent a standard install of ubuntu on a lot of machines.
I would think Linux would is likely to work better on old hardware then Windows (performance wise and with driver support).
I thought so too, but I learned. I’m not speaking out of my hind quarters, but from personal experience.
Unfortunately a lot of what vodoomoth says is true Windows has almost total dominance in Africa and that is because of piracy. The best thing that MS could do for Linux in Africa is clamp down on piracy.
Possibly things are changing – a Kenyan friend of mine and Windows man, whose general attitude is piracy is cool is taking Linux a little more seriously after MS closed down a load of Internet cafes and other businesses etc because of piracy and the fact it has become more difficult to have a functional updated system with pirate software.
In South Africa although Windows is dominant Linux seems to be of increasing interest in education, business and government.
Its all good as long as that IP is created on their software. But when it comes to open source, well that kind of IP is something you will still have to pay Microsoft for, even though they had nothing to do with it.
It sucks when you buy a new PC with a non-genuine copy of Windows. If the vendor who sold it to you patches it up, it’ll pass activation and WGA when you first get it, or will come already activated. But then a few months later when a Windows update comes along that invalidates whatever it was they patched, then you’re not genuine anymore. So then, how the hell are consumers supposed to know what is genuine and what isn’t?
This actually happened to somebody I know, who bought a PC from a local mom & pop shop for $400, which came with Windows, Office, Nero, and a handful of other apps. I knew the stuff was counterfeit as soon as I saw what it came with, but he didn’t want to pursue it. Then a few months later, it came back to bite him on the ass. That being said, Microsoft was kind enough to sell him a genuine copy on the cheap, which got me to thinking whether unscrupulous pirates who wanted a genuine copy could use that to their advantage.
Edited 2010-11-09 02:42 UTC
It sucks more when you buy a laptop without an OS and know that you paid for Microsoft Windows license anyway… And not in all countries you can get a refund.
When I can easily buy any laptop without a part of the money going to Microsoft in form of non-legal tax, then I will not stop using pirated versions of their software. When they stop indirectly forcing me to give them money, then I will consider software that I am using to be illegally acquired.