Stallman Goes to India

SureshD writes "The Hindu is reporting on a 40 minute long meeting between Richard Stallman and the Indian President - Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. After the interview, RMS said that the President was 'receptive' to his views that development of software should be seen as a political and social issue and not just from the technological point of view. Interestingly, the article mentions that the President had prepared for the meeting by downloading and reading Stallman's biography (Free as in Freedom) from the Internet."

Comments

what sealed the deal..

[Anonymous Coward]

..is when Stallman promised the president a totaly no-cost, no-strings-attached copy of GCC for every Indian citizen. Even Bill Gates couldn't match that incredibly generous offer!!

Re:what sealed the deal..

[NonSequor]

Bill Gates offered them a set of steak knives but for some reason they turned down the offer.

Re:what sealed the deal..

[gid13]

Actual conversation between the lead singer of my band and his overly Christian aunt:

"Holy cow!"
"Cows aren't holy, Mike."
"In India they are."
"Well, they're wrong."

What does this have to do with software, you ask? Uh... Well... Christians try to bind everyone to Christianity and Microsoft tries to bind everyone to Windows. Yeah. Think about it. :)

Re:what sealed the deal..

[Anonymous Coward]

Would that be Big Indian or Little Indian ?

Re:what sealed the deal..

[no longer myself]

Why does Stallman hate america?

I don't think he does. Corperatists have long enjoyed exploiting Americans since early on, but for good or ill, unions and labor laws have made it hard to compete in the current climate. Naturally, they outsource to nations that don't have these kinds of laws.

On the one hand, the corperatist has his eye on cheap labor. It's one of the principle foundations of capitalism, and technically, there's nothing wrong with that. On the other hand, they lobby relentlessly with law makers to ensure that new-comers will be at a significant disadvantage by making the entry-level cost of competing too high for even the brightest would-be entreprenuer.

Of course, what does this have to do with "free" software? Well, it's obvious that many corperations have a vested interest in keeping individuals from competing at their level, and the fact of the matter is, you can create very professional and profitable systems using the tools found under the GPL.

Proprietary software is something that corperatists are comfortable with. They can control it through tiered licensing schemes, and even control how a person may use the software, and to what extent. This allows them to control the growth of any would-be competition, and even prune it if necessary. The average "Merkin" is none-the-wiser of their schemes, and it all gets wrapped up in nice, neat, legal redtape.

Enter The "Free as in Freedom" software.
Corperatists can't control it. Therefore it is difficult to impossible to control their competition. So they whine to the legislators they need more patent laws, copyright laws, and generally speaking- more of every law out there to keep those pesky would-be entreprenuers out of the "Free Market".

So if you love freedom, and you want to be free to pursue your goals in life, what is the best way to stop them? Go outside the US. Make sure that the rest of the world has these tools and that they become standard issue before their governments become poluted with corperatistic protectionist laws. With other nations having such an advantage, the American people might just wake up and smell the bullshit that these exploitationists have been shoveling. Some of them might actually send off a letter to their congress saying, "If we live in such a FREE country, why can't we have these tools as well? Hell, even those damned commies have better software than we do!"

And so the repeal of corperatist legislation may begin, and a FREE MARKET can take its place where people may buy and sell goods without the overbearing corperation run beauracracy that we have today.

And don't you damned corperatists go calling me a libral. It's not communism or socialism. It's called a Free Market and Free (as in Freedom) software will give rise to newer and better Free Markets. Corperations controlling the legislative body of government better deserve the moniker of communism since currently they control production, labor, and distribution, and, largely, the social and cultural life and thought of the people. In spite of all their hand-waving about being American capitalists, they are the very essence of un-American communisism.

If we are ever to truly be free, we must stand as individuals and stop licking the hand of our corperate puppetmasters.

To control or be controlled. Which is it?

OK, I had the guts to take this "Karma Swan-Dive". Let's hope it's not in vain.

Wow...

[mgebbers]

I didn't know the Indian government was hiring

This is pricing strategy.

[mumblestheclown]

In a May 2003 speech, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam noted that OSS offered India "a superior opportunity to modernize." This was followed just a short while later by India negotiaing a superiorly low-cost deal with microsoft for its services.

I think one must look in terms of governmental actions on OSS in such a strategic light. Kalam, a figurehead king, may be a true believer, but insofar as his actions on software goes, he's being used as a pawn to gain better licensing terms from microsoft.

Re:This is pricing strategy.

[metlin]

Not true.

A lot of govt. organizations in India today use OSS. For every area of the govt that uses Microsoft software, there is atleast one other counterpart which uses OSS.

In fact, the last time I checked, a lot of states were having budget deficits. Guess what is it that they cut down on?

I know for a fact that several nationalized banks as well as other govt agencies have switched to OSS.

You think MS would get scared merely by the "threat" of OpenSource? The reason they are really scared is because there are parts of the nation that use OSS, and it works.

Now THAT would explain why Microsoft is opening so many branches in India -- primarily because they would have the excuse of providing jobs, and to feed those jobs they would need the govts money for software.

Do not think MS would be doing this unless there is a benefit for them.

Re:This is pricing strategy.

[Serious Simon]

Maybe, but apparently even Microsoft recognizes that OSS is a feasible alternative for India. Otherwise they wouldn't have been forced to drastically lower the price of their offering.

Re:This is pricing strategy.

[jkrise]

This is simply not true. The President has in fact specifically mentioned the problems of choosing proprietary code, and unreliable vendors of said code. His vision is backed by political funding for universities, centers-of-excellence, and other initiatives for furthering open-source in India.

To say that the President did this as a bargaining strategy with Microsoft is an insult. In fact, during a prior meeting with Mr.Gates, the press were full of pictures of Gates and Dr. Kalam strolling in the gardens. Dr. Kalam took special pains to mention that the discussions duringg that meeting 'turned difficult' since Mr.Gates wasn't seeing eye-to-eye with India's vision for computing.

-

Re:This is pricing strategy.

[DF5JT]

" Maybe, but apparently even Microsoft recognizes that OSS is a feasible alternative for India. Otherwise they wouldn't have been forced to drastically lower the price of their offering."

The good thing about it is the fact that Microsoft will have to change its attitude in questions of interoperability and support of open standards. In that sense, the pressure of OSS software really will change the way proprietory software enterprises will address their customers' needs.

Braindrain

[G3ckoG33k]

Possibly, with GPL, India may be turning the braindrain the other way round. You often need somewhat mature code to play with in the beginning of your career, and, after all, there are hundreds of sourceforge/freshmeat projects which need to be better maintained.

Was Richard in need of a job?

[ryen]

Hi, Thank you for calling Dell technical support. My name is Richard. How may I help you?

Maybe..

[xzap]

the President gave him some tips on what shampoo to use..after all both the President and Stallman a long long mane ;)

Power Shift

[cybermint]

India's tech is booming. Japan has all the cutting edge electronics and technologies. China is destined to be the next super power. Korea is trying to get nukes. The USA has mad cow disease, a puppet for a president, a huge debt, a slow economy and we're spending billions more on rebuilding a country that we destroyed while looking for weapons that didn't exist. Times are changing. Maybe considering India as a future isn't such a bad idea.

Re:Power Shift

[justin_speers]

India's tech is booming

The U.S. still imports way more jobs than it imports, and India's tech is booming based solely on the fact that it is low cost. Try reading some alternative viewpoints on the outsourcing subject.

Japan has all the cutting edge electronics and techonologies
And those Japanese companies also create a lot of jobs in the U.S., and the Japanese economy isn't doing so hot. Your point?

China is destined to be the next super power
With no economic freedom and the vast majority of it's citizens living in horrid poverty, I doubt it.

Korea is trying to get nukes
NORTH Korea already has them.

The USA has mad cow disease, a puppet for a president, a huge debt, a slow economy and we're spending billions more on rebuilding a country that we destroyed while looking for weapons that didn't exist.

Slow economy? I'm seeing growth right now, what are you talking about? It was slow a year ago, times are changing... mad cow disease gets a big "so what" from me, it's more paranoia than reality, it does more damage to the beef industry than the general population. And a puppet for a President? Watch this "puppet" obliterate John Kerry in the next election.

It's really lame his editorializing was so lacking in any substance, and yet modded up as insightful.

Hope Stallman is not too late

[romit_icarus]

Gates has been marketing to India for years. His visits to India are very high profile.

Gates' view towards india is simple: Get the 15% of developers to use MS, and that'll provide the basis for MS.

Interestingly, unlike in the rest of asia, software piracy is never an issue with MS although software piracy is rampant...

Predident has a history of Linux support

[leoaugust]

The Indian President is tech-savvy and has on earlier occasions tried to promote Linux. He was really a rocket scientist before he was appointed the President.

In May 2003, he gave a speech in which he said "said it is 'unfortunate' that proprietary software - such as Windows - is so popular and has called for broader adoption of open source products." More details here - ZDNet UK - News - Indian President adds salt to MS wounds

From the article, notes on a conversation with Bill Gates:

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam recounted a conversation earlier this year with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. "We were discussing the future challenges in information technology, including the issues related to software security," Kalam said, according to a transcript of the speech. "I made a point that we look for open-source codes so that we can easily introduce the users built security algorithms. Our discussions became difficult, since our views were different."

Re:President not head of government

[jkrise]

Although this is true, it is also to be remembered that the Preisdent of India is highly respected in technical and defence circles. As such, his views and leanings have a lot of bearing on the political decision-making process.

While launching the IIIT in Pune, the President made a pointed reference to his meeting with Mr. Gates, and made some brilliant points in exhorting the local IT community to further the cause of Free and Open Source software.

India is indeed fortunate to have such an eminently qualified person at the apex seat, since IT is synonymous with national security these days....

-

POI's website

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr.Kalam's website at http://presidentofindia.nic.in/ , runs on Linux and Apache . Undoubtedly one of the most qualified persons for the job, he headed India's defence research body, the DRDO and was one of the key members of the team planning and implementing India's second round of nuclear tests in 1998 (India tested its first nuclear device in 1974).
Also a bachelor like India's executive head,the Prime Minister.

Re:POI's website

[zungu]

Also, he is a qualified Aeronautical engineer. He is the key architect of India's rocket launching capabilities. Also, an erudite poet and musician. Keeps his hair long and wears informal blue shirts most of the time. Spends time talking to school kids on all his visits. Cool guy, in short.

Interesting use of contextual example

[SuperKendall]

I found this section interesting:

Besides explaining the political philosophy of FOSS movement, Dr. Stallman said he also spoke to the President about the real intention behind Microsoft's plan to spread the use of computers in schools which was "akin to the colonial system of recruiting the local elite to help keep others in line.''

Nothing like digging up the ghosts of the past to help sell an idea! It seemed a smart analogy to me.

Perhaps someone should speak to the congress about Free Software in these terms - "Free software is like allowing your colony/company the independence to rule as it likes, instead of all your money being shipped to an uncaring vendor/government far away from the day-to-day concerns of your operation yet supposedly providing you relevant services to the work at hand."

All I have to say is

[kurosawdust]

If this means the addition of a sitar track in "The Free Software Song", I'm all for it.

What is the *source* of the "RMS" controversy?

[LibrePensador]

A very old proverb says that "it's hard to be a prophet in one's own land."

For some reason, Richard Stallman is demonized in the US as some eccentric loony. Yet the rest of the world actually holds him in very high regard. I have had the fortune of listening to him speak on the issue of software patents and not only was he articulate but he was able to appeal to a large audience made up of people from all walks of life.

Even if you disagree with specific positions that RMS might take, you have to give the guy credit for standing his ground. To me the GPL is one of the cornerstones of the free software movement and its cultural and social implications will reverberate for generations.

Re:What is the *source* of the "RMS" controversy?

[nathanh]

For some reason, Richard Stallman is demonized in the US as some eccentric loony. Yet the rest of the world actually holds him in very high regard. I have had the fortune of listening to him speak on the issue of software patents and not only was he articulate but he was able to appeal to a large audience made up of people from all walks of life.

He is fairly eccentric. I've met him twice and he's... uhh... he could do with a visit from the Queer Eye TV show.

However I suspect the real reason that he's considered a "loony" in the USA is because he doesn't bow to the almighty dollar. I'm not trolling. Americans seem overly concerned about money. Notice that one of the first things an American asks after learning about free software is "how will programmers get paid?" No thoughts about how it can help less fortunate countries, or less fortunate districts within America. No thoughts about how sharing software would lead to advancements in software because programmers will be freed up to work on new and exciting things. No thoughts about advancing science or technology for the benefit of mankind. Not even thinking that maybe these hobbyists write free software because they want to! An American's primary cause for concern is "where's the personal financial gain?"

I think this is because USA punishes people without money. If you don't make lots of money you live on the streets. There is no socialism. No "safety net" if you lose your job. It's shameful for an American to be without money. Success is tied with being rich. Poor people are "losers". That makes it hard for an American to get past the "no cost" aspect of Free Software and start to understand the freedom aspects.

I'm not saying money is unimportant. But RMS sees a balance between money and sharing. Between proprietary interests and the public interest. He tries to communicate that software is not just about technology and "innovation". It's also about political and social improvement. America rewards financial success, not social improvement, and I think that's really sad.

NB: And I'm not saying that Americans only think about money, or that no other culture has similar disdain for slackabouts, or that no other culture pursues financial success as a means of evaluating worth. I'm just saying that it's more exaggerated in Americans. That's just my ignorant opinion (I've never lived in America) but I suspect my ignorant opinion is not unique and not far off the mark.

Re:What is the *source* of the "RMS" controversy?

[caudron]

It's shameful for an American to be without money. Success is tied with being rich. Poor people are "losers".

I get what you are saying, but as an American, I feel the need to clarify your point.

Americans have a strong drive to succeed. We have a drive to compete with ourselves. It's the basis of what we call the "American Dream" (to become strong and independent). As a society, we embrace the ideal of constant self-improvement. We strive for one goal: Self-Sustenance.

It's not that we look down on people who are poor. Almost every American you ask will agree that a person isn't less of a person for being poorer than another. No, our real issue is with people who cannot live in a reasonably (note I did not say fully) self-sustaining manner. We do look down on people who /need/ handouts and who otherwise appear capable. We, as a society, don't begrudge people who cannot be self-sustaining, like children, some elderly, or the sick, as evidenced by our social programs to help those people. But our other social programs, like unemployment checks, welfare, and the such are time-limited.

We firmly stand by our conviction that if you can become more self-sustaining, then you should.

So you see, it isn't money which drives us. Money is just one way of many to gain a measure of self-sustenance. It's the desire to minimize our external dependencies. You can be dirt-poor in America, but grow your own food and manage your own needs and we will only admire you. Likewise, you can be filthy-rich in America but constantly seek government grants and the such ans we will despise you. This has it's own ancillary set of problems, but they are different from those that we would have if money were our obsession.

I'm not making a judgement here as to whether that's better or worse than what you claimed, but rather just clarifying for you the real pathos of the American Dream.

Re:They all do that.

[civad]

How is that interesting? In case you don't know, every politician does that or is prepared by advisors before plunging into any meeting. Or is that interesting because he usually does not do that? Maybe he needs someone like Condoleezza Rice to chew and spit the stuff to him, so he can better use his time....

How many times has Mr. Stallman met Mr. Bush? How much time did the latter spend to prepare for the meeting? What is the outlook of the US Govt. towards Open Source movement?

I am assuming you are in teh US, since you seem to be so ignorant about the importance of what the President of India did.

Re:Full text

[gasgesgos]

The site's not even slashdotted, (I hope) most of us can actually click a link (or type in the link, for IE users) and read the original article ourselves, without possibility of alteration from the karma whores.


Next the karma whores are going to start repeating the Slashdot headline and text "in case it ever gets slashdotted."


FULL TEXT OF SLASHDOT POSTING:

Stallman Goes to India

Posted by michael on Monday February 02, @02:33AM
from the exploring-outsourcing-next-version-of-gcc dept.
SureshD writes "The Hindu is reporting on a 40 minute long meeting between Richard Stallman and the Indian President - Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. After the interview, RMS said that the President was 'receptive' to his views that development of software should be seen as a political and social issue and not just from the technological point of view. Interestingly, the article mentions that the President had prepared for the meeting by downloading and reading Stallman's biography (Free as in Freedom) from the Internet."

( Read More... | 62 of 75 comments )


can I have my +5 informative now?

A few things about India

[arvindn]

India is more left leaning on the "Free software" vs. "open source" question than the US. One reason is definitely the colonial past.

Communism is not a bad word here. In fact there are a couple of states which have had communist governments for much of their existence. Naturally this contributes to linux's popularity. Now don't get me wrong, all I'm saying is that the idea of sharing appeals to communists.

Our president is a cool guy. As someone already pointed out, the president is not a political figure in India. But Kalam is a respected person and gives a lot of speeches and many people listen to him etc.

Linux usage in India is definitely rather high. The obvious reason is that there are more programmers ==> more nerds etc. But its far from the only reason. Even though unauthorized copying (I won't use the p-word) is very prevalent, those buying a branded PC will still have to pay for Windows. This is a big factor in the cost conscious Indian market. So in the last 8 months, the number of OEMs pre-loading linux has exploded. Today half the PC ads I see in the paper are MS-free! I can also feel the change at the grassroots level -- neighbors, tech support etc.

The future looks bright.

India on the ball

[0x0d0a]

You know, India's president is an engineering PhD. We have George Bush, a C student who had his wealthy family get him his position.

India puts a good deal of emphasis on producing engineers. Surprise -- India is improving its lot at a stunning rate.

Plenty of things are wrong with India, but we could take a lesson from it as well.

Re:Jesuit Alumni

[jkrise]

To say that Dr. Kalam's thinking is influenced by his college days is too simplistic. The Indian landscape is home to multiple religions, faiths and beliefs, much like the GNU/Linux world where several strnds and flavours exist.

His belonging to one particular strand at one particular point in time does not have any bearing to his thought-process at all. Most Indian political leaders have often advocated tolerance and respect to diversity, and believe that true freedom implies shunning mono-cultures.

In short, moving from a particular brand of proprietary code (Microsoft) to a particular model of Linux (say GNU) isn't good for any country let alone India. Dr.Kalam seems to have understood this fact more clearly than most other heads - be they political, religious or ideological.

-

Heriditary heads of government

[pommiekiwifruit]

USA isn't the only country with a tradition of a heriditery head of state who retains power. India had Nehru/Indira/Ranjiv/Sonja. Pakistan had the Bhuttos.

Perhaps they should both go down the european route of letting the "first family" have a ceremonial role (the Bushes and the Kennedys could share the duties in the USA) and letting commoners be elected to the executive jobs.

stop calling them Indians!

[Anonymous Coward]

They are Native Americans!

Re:Just a short little question

[pandrijeczko]

Everyone seems so willing to make the argument other countries should not rely so much on foreign (American) software.

If you believe this then you're missing the point entirely. The backlash is not against "American software", it's against being locked into proprietary code and proprietary protocols.
The fact that MS believe only in the proprietary model means that they are the focus of the backlash a lot of the time - however, traditional Unix vendors like SCO and Sun are also targets of much criticism by the Open Source community.

Wouldn't that mean the loss of more American tech jobs? Aren't those lines of thinking in conflict?

Tech jobs will go to India purely because it's cheaper to hire a techie in India rather than the US or Europe. A company's decision to do that is based purely on profit and it's irrelevant whether the techies support Windows, Linux, etc.

Or is it okay to lose tech jobs, as long as those jobs are Microsoft's, and somehow that won't affect other tech jobs.???

No, it's not alright for just MS to lose jobs but please remember that it's the company's own decision to lay off its workforce, not some external factor.
I'm a firm believer in goverment taxation of profits for companies that outsource jobs outside of countries where they do the most business.
As far as I am concerned, if a company makes money in a particular country, then it has an obligation to not just take money out of that country but put something back into it like jobs and livelihoods - i.e. it should be made more expensive to outsource jobs to another country due to taxation of profits.

Re:Restrictive?

[pe1rxq]

Suppose you are developping a big application and are using a single GPL'd function or a single line of GPL'd code....
In that case you have the following possibilities:

- You are just plain lazy. You have the resources to write or have written a large chunk of code and could have written that last line/function as well.
Having to obey the license is just the price for your lazieness.

- The GPL'd code is just brilliant and it would have cost you a lot to replicate it. In that case that line/function ceases to be just a line or just a function but becomes an important part of your program. Having to obey the license is the price for saving you a lot of work.

There simply is no excuse for using someone elses work and not respecting the license they chose.
If you don't like the license don't use the code.

Jeroen

GNU/India

[freedom_leffo]

In other news, the Indian president announced that they'll from now on will go by the name GNU/India.

Re:Restrictive?

[abe ferlman]

Um, insightful? wake up modkids.

Yes, it is restrictive. "Share and share alike" is all very well. "Use a single GPL'd function and have to give away my entire source base" is another matter.

In capitalism, the seller sets the price and the buyer decides whether it's worth it. What are you, some kind of kooky communist? Don't use the GPL'd stuff if you don't want to pay for it, don't use Visual Studio if you don't want to pay for it.

In addition, it's not a zero sum game, so if I "steal" some of your GPL'd code, you still have it, so you have no grounds to bitch about me making it proprietary.

If you make it proprietary, I don't have the legal right to it anymore; nor does anyone else. That's the sense of "having it" that's important. Idea monopolies artificially raise the price of information.

The GPL has its good points, but to say it's not restrictive is to ignore reality.

You warty troll. The GPL has but one restriction- don't use GPL'd software in the creation of proprietary software. This restriction has special network effects: it reduces the freedom of any one party from reducing the freedom of everyone else. The GPL only restricts restrictions, that's a net gain for "unrestricted" software.

President moved from Windows to Linux

[jayan]

(Offtopic)
According to netcraft (http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.pre sidentofindia.nic.in) President's website was running MS windows sometime back. Now that runs on Linux.
Good work.

Re:Restrictive?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's definitely a possibility, but people often seem to charge ridiculous amounts.

Most software isn't free as in beer. You have a choice of how to pay for it. Will you pay in money or in source code? That's the proprietary / GPL difference.

it's a bit annoying considering everyone else is getting it for nothing.

They aren't. They're paying in source code. You can pay in source code too, if you like. Or you can just not use the GPL library.

I really don't understand your problem. You seem to think that because you can read the source code of a GPL library, and download it and link it to your program without paying a penny, that you should somehow have the "right" to do whatever you like with it.

Here's a clue: the GPL is not taking away your freedom to use that library - it is giving you the freedom to use that library, if you agree not to take that freedom away from anyone else.

Maybe you should be thanking the authors for making it possible for those who can't afford huge license fees to write software, instead of cursing them for preventing you from charging huge license fees for their software.

Re:Restrictive?

[abe ferlman]

Me? A communist? We're in a discussion about RMS, and I'm siding slightly against the GPL, and I'm a communist? Interesting.

This is a common misconception. Look, just because someone dresses like a hippy doesn't mean they're a communist. Stallman is the ultimate capitalist, he thinks the market should set the price of ideas without the government creating monopolies in that space. You tell me what part of Stallman's philosophy (rather than his appearance) is anything but capitalist and we'll have a discussion.

Eh? What? You still have your original code. If I make changes to that code

That's not what you originally said, you said if you steal the code, not if you make modifications to it.

I'm more than happy to send you a patch. As for the rest of my code, you never had any right to that, and you still don't, so you haven't lost anything.

I've lost the right to write the same code, especially if you've patented your enhancements. But even if you're just copyrighting your code, you can probably draw a free software developer into a legal battle she can not afford even if she's right.

Furthermore, your proprietary innovation reduces the incentive to create free enhancements. If authors do have the right to control their works (i.e., if idea monopolies are legitimate), then you should respect my terms. I personally do not want to see someone profit off of my free work without giving back equally.

Imagine I bequeath a free library to the public with the condition that it can never sell books, only lend them. You build a bookstore annex on my public library and make deals with the book industry so that you'll get enough copies of all the new releases to sell, but the library can't buy enough to meet lending demand. You've done something very ugly. You've unfairly (although not illegally) capitalized on the goodwill that the bookstore created by making it harder for the free book community to thrive.

You may not agree with me that this would be a bad thing. But if I build that library with my own labor you ought to respect my wishes if you expect me to respect yours.

People who say the GPL is restrictive seem to imagine that there's only one person in the world, and it's always themselves. "The GPL unfairly restricts my ability to profit off of your work." Waaah.

TCPA Pricing Goes Further

[4of12]

Otherwise they wouldn't have been forced to drastically lower the price of their offering.

That Microsoft is even able to change the price of their product so easily is a consequence of their monopoly control of the market.

Recall Thailand's Linux laptop project motivated MS to cut prices there. Needless to say, those kinds of prices were not available to buyers of Windows and Office in North America, Europe and Japan.

Probably one of the most overlooked aspects Microsoft's so-called Trusted Computing initiative (most people in this forum are afraid The Man will spy on them, erase their MP3's and make their old Word documents unreadable unless they keep current their Office subscription payments) is that by targeting contracts with defined individuals and machines, the commodity nature of its products is lessened (the software CD becomes non-transferrable)and it becomes even more feasible to discriminate in pricing than it is now.

Expect this development.

Having essentially conquered the market for desktop software Microsoft has to look at other alternatives for growth, which is what their shareholders demand.

But it is hard for Microsoft to grow now! Entering new markets is difficult for them because their actions will be scrutinized for unfair leveraging of their monopoly position. The remaining alternative is to adjust pricing to maximize revenue; get from each user what they can.

Thus, they might well charge a few rupees for their OS in India and hundreds of dollars for the same product in a large corporate environment in the United States.

With TCPA Windows, there will be no danger of the Indian licensee re-selling their copy of Windows to someone in the United States. Not only will such resale be "illegal", but it will become technically much less feasible than it is now.