Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Sets Value Of Pirated Windows: $1
nick_davison writes "The BBC is reporting that Microsoft has reached a deal with the Indonesian government on pirated software - which is believed to affect around 50,000 government PCs. Under the deal, Indonesia will pay $1 per copy and agree to buy legally in the future. Indonesia's information minister, Sofyan Djalil, said, "Microsoft is being realistic. They can't force developing countries like us to solely use legal software since we can't afford it. They want us to gradually reduce our use of it." Somehow it seems unlikely the same rules will be applied to developing companies and poorer individuals in the United States."
"Somehow it seems unlikely the same rules will be applied to developing companies and poorer individuals in the United States."
You scream Linux, OpenOffice and not bluff you'll get big discounts. MS is rich because people simply pay up. Start being an *informed* consumer, markets work better that way.
Deleted
fools! MS would rather PAY YOU to maintain its monopoly and mindshare than have you turn to linux.
...and about as good for you, too.
Seriously, though -- why do people still pirate MS products when you can have the free (better?) alternative operating system, office suite, e-mail client, yadda yadda?
Is this a statement of "joe sixpack" and his relative ignorance of the alternatives or is this more a shot at OSS -- "we'd rather break laws than use your free (no-good) stuff?" The former seems to be a quest for a Linux marketing department. The latter is one for the usability experts to hammer out with the open source coders.
Either way, there's some truth to be revealed in the answer to why people still pirate Microsoft products.
Can this set any precident for the "value" of MSFT software in general? If someone is caught with pirated software, could this overturn the (potential) $150,000 copyright violation because of this precident?
I assume MSFT knows what it's doing (what with their fleet of lawyers).
The Indonesian information minister's statement is ridiculous: "They can't force developing countries like us to solely use legal software since we can't afford it." WTF? Why not? If you can afford Windows, give it a shot. If you can't, try OSS. It'll work. Maybe better, maybe worse. But you sure as hell can be forced to do things legally.
It's not like they're being forced to pay outrageous prices for their sole source of food or something. They have a choice of software, and they choose an expensive, proprietary, non-free one. The shiny, fancy one. Guess what? It costs money.
Look at just about *any* large software company that sells to businesses. Their goal is to get you locked-in to a software package, and then milk as much money as they possibly can from you. The real money to be made is in hidden costs. Sure, Bob the Purchasing Manager *thinks* that he's bought a copy of the software, but in fact he's signed off on spending money on the software package for the next fifteen years until the company is frusterated enough to ante up enough money to jump ship to another package.
And the best tool of all in the software world to squeeze those-money engorged corporate udders is incompatibility -- file formats, APIs and protocols that only *you* can provide. (And user expertise in your software.)
The smart purchaser stays the hell away from any proprietary file formats, APIs and protocols.
The main reason that the open source world is nice for the corporate world is not the up-front price benefits. It's the fact that open source software inherently has non-proprietary file formats, APIs, and protocols, means that a choice of open source software ensures that you can't be milked (well, *too* much) or else someone else will toddle on in and start providing an alternative.
Consider an example: People using Subversion for their source control aren't going to pay a cent for anything in the future. Even if Subversion cost $5000 a seat, instead of being gratis, it would still mean only a one-time payment. People using ClearCase have many years of rich milk-giving ahead of them.
Microsoft lets people use Windows for minimal cost in areas that it wants to enter because it establishes one of the above pillars of lock-in -- it builds user expertise in their software. Any software with a different interface or behavior immediately represents a barrier to change. That retraining has a cost, that cost can have a dollar value assigned to it, and that dollar value is exactly how much Microsoft can milk you for in the future.
Microsoft's most-used mechanism to help *spread* lock-in is not contracts or dirty legal tactics, but bundling. Get one element of lock-in into play (say, file formats, with Windows binary compatibility), and use it to get Windows deployed, then try to use that to get people to use another element of Windows that can provide its own lock-in benefits. The economic potential, the amount of money that Microsoft can milk users for, increases with every increment of lock-in.
Microsoft didn't give away Internet Explorer for free because they love you and like petting kitties and giving candy to babies. They did it because (a) it builds user expertise in a feature of their software that then is difficult to move away from, increasing lock-in, (b) enough use of Internet Explorer results in network-spanning lock-in as people start dabbling in things like ActiveX, which are a big milk-producing mechanism for Microsoft, and (c) it provides another, significant, platform to use to introduce file format and protocol incompatibility, and thus further milk-producing lock-in. Internet Explorer is an *investment* in producing economic potential, lock-in, which they can cash in for loads of money over time in the future.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
end rant
WHY does M$ needs $50k from Indonesia? Maybe they could donate the windows copies to the Tsunami Relief efforts...
* Some corporations are corrupt
* Some governments are corrupt
* Individuals are often powerless when the two get together
* Resistance is futile
* You will be assimilated
Hope that helps.
I am sure there are going to be many Microsoft bashers about this article, but the fact is the software is not FREE. If you don't like it use Linux, BSD, or some other FREE software. Microsoft does have a right to collect on their software, and yes Mr. Inormation minister they can and should enoforce their copyrights. If they don't then they could forfeit them.
Windows is popular because Apple blew it, and Linux was just recent and not very user friendly at the time. I am a Linux fan, but whether or not you like it Microsoft deserves the price they set. However, no one said you had to buy it.
... but they want to keep their customers.
A very true observation. But it's not so much about money itself anymore as it is power and control. They want the guarantee of a steady flow of money more than the money itself, and the only solution that can put that guarantee in place is the lock-in of a single vendor solution. They're willing to all but give Windows away to establish that lock-in, and that's what this agreement is designed to do.
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
* Most corporations are corrupt ...
* All governments are corrupt
* Individuals are powerless when the two get together, unless they get together, too
* Resistance is not futile, but is bloody
* You will be assimilated quicker if you buy Nikes, eat at McD's, use MS products
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Ever consider the possibility she is innocent? How unlikely is it that baggage handlers are not involved, or do you think that they, their employers (ie Qantas) and any other agency are more concerned with their reputation than trying to free an innocent victim.
VERITAS VOS LIBERABIT
Ah, in my opinion, its worse than all that. I consider it a human rights issue when people are subjected to show trials, without the benefit of innocence until proven guilty, and when a person is prevented from mounting an affirmative defense. Show trials like this one are the kind of stuff you normally think about when a spy plane pilot is shot down over soviet territory, not when a rather normal (as far as Aussies are normal) civilian is caught with some naughty plants in her luggage.
Innocent or not, she wasn't even given the chance to defend herself. It seems obvious to me that the judges in this case had decided guilt from the beginning, and were expecting her defense to be a plea for leniency. This is not justice. This is the opposite of justice, and its an outrage. However, the fact that no western nation is actually DOING anything about this is indicidive of world politics today. Indonesia is important economically. Thats all that matters. Let Miss Corby rot in prison the rest of her life, as long as Indonesia's markets remain open.
Such little, unimportant things like Human Rights are never going to get the attention they deserve from the west, not as long as our politicians, and the people they represent, refuse to grow some balls and make some (economic) sacrifices for what should rightly be percieved as the greater good.
No sig now
innocence until proven guilty
This is only *one* way of running a trial. Some countries practice guilty until proven innocent, including as it happens, Indonesia.
In the "western" system of proving guilt over a presumption of innocence we have the possibility of releasing (perhaps dangerously) guilty people because we couldn't adequately prove thier guilt, but it's very hard for innocent people to get locked up.
However in countries where we must prove innocence over a presumption of guilt we have the possibility of locking up innocent people because they couldn't adequately prove thier innocence, but it is very hard for guilty people to be erroneously released, without bribery of course.
Six of one, half dozen of the other really, both systems have advantages, both have problems. You have to decide for yourself if you would rather have some guilty people get away with it, or some innocent people serve time erroneously.
NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
Why is it that I have to compete on a global market labor-rate-wise, yet they don't have to pay global rates for software? You can't have it both ways, guys. If you stab my job with your $4/hr labor rates, then we get to stab you with $200 software.
If you go global, then do it fair.
Table-ized A.I.