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Piracy Built the Romanian IT Industry
An anonymous reader submitted a link to a Washington Post article about a very interesting press conference. Romanian President Traian Basescu stood up in front of international press and discussed the role pirated Microsoft software played in bringing about the IT industry in the country. The other big player at the press conference was Microsoft chair Bill Gates. Gates' company was opening a technical center in Bucharest, and he declined to comment on the president's remarks. Romania passed anti-piracy laws nearly 10 years ago, but nearly 70 percent of software used in the country continues to be of an illicit nature.
This just in: Romania destroyed by what appears to have been a bombardment of chairs. More at 11.
I'm in between insightful sigs right now...
...is that someone of note said such things publicly.
Rampant piracy has been the norm for quite a long time in Eastern Europe & Asia.
Bill Gates most certainly knows this, but there really isn't anything he can do about it... and by opening a "global technical center" in Romania, it would seem like he is rewarding the country, regardless of their piratical ways.
Maybe it's cheap labor, maybe he sees opportunities for growth, I can't say.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, MS owes Romania. You see, MS has been using the vampire method of business: sucking the blood of their customers. A clear rip-off of the vampire business model.
I live in Romania, and the fact is that many people here, after spending 500$ on a decent PC, find it hard to pay another 400$ on software (cheap computers here come with no software, or FreeDOS or Linux, and in some cases illegal Windows). So most people run pirated versions of Windows at home. In contrast, most bussinesses have legitimate licenses.
But I do not think this hurts MS too much. My reasoning is that if forced to pay for Windows, most people would spend a little more time learning to install and use Linux (it's really not that hard this days). And in the long this would result in more users proficient with Linux, and some bussinesses might also switch (not having to train employees).
So software piracy is bad, but not necessarily for the software maker.
"Every person you can successfully move off of a windows running unauthorized windows is a gain for free software."
;)
:)
No argument here...
"My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love"
My onions listen for the gentle dripping of your tears.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
US refused to pass any copyright laws in the publishing industry
till the time there were enough US authors whose rights needed
to be protected. When Charles Dickens visited the US, he saw his
books sold legally all over the place & he wasn't getting a penny
out of these sales. He complained to the US Govt repeatedly but
of no avail.
But publishers who were "pirating" his books in the US made
enough money to kickstart the publishing industry in the US.
Then a time came when there were enough US authors whose
rights had to be protected & that's when the relavant laws
were passed & enforced in the US.
Something similiar is happening in Romania wrt the software
industry.
Hey, I dunno about you guys, but at least 90 percent of the commercial software that I've used for the last 20 years has been pirated, or obtained through some other means besides paying for it. I find it hard to believe that would make me much of an oddball among the Slashdot crowd.
What's more, I concur with some of the Romanian president's comments. If it weren't for software piracy, I wouldn't have half the understanding of computers, software, and building systems out of the two, that I have today. Piracy made it possible for me to be a more valuable member of society. (I would argue that this fact is one more reason to encourage open source whenever and wherever possible.)
One ought to recall that not only was the American economy "built" on slavery but any other economy in the 18 and 19th century as well. Slavery be it the "indentured type", outright imported-people racial slavery (today's while slavery notwithstanding). All of Spain's and Portugal's colonies had massive amounts of slaves --see the the ratio of non-native people of African descent in Latin America. In addition, look at the situation as it was in Russia and India --sure the underclass weren't labelled slaves, but they were simply nominally not slaves. In practice they were and many were worse off than _some_ imported slaves in the Americas --I'm not trying to minimize the harship imported slaves went through, I'm pointing out that they were not the only ones exploited whose lives were "ruined" so-to-speak and whose lives had no outlook but stark misery and penury.
So, in the sense of lack of mobility, and liberty, and self-determination, economic viability many, many nations of today had "slave-based" economies back inthe days of yore.
we are also known to drink the blood of every fat american that makes the mistake to walk the streets at night.
Stop Computers/Cars Analogies on S