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Microsoft Calls Today Global Anti-Piracy Day
arcticstoat points out an article at Custom PC, according to which: "Microsoft has announced that today is Global Anti-Piracy Day. Launching several global initiatives, the aim is to raise awareness of the damage to software innovation that Microsoft says is caused by piracy. ... As well as educating people about piracy, Microsoft has also initiated a huge list of legal proceedings that it's taking out against pirates. Microsoft isn't messing about when it says 'global' either. The list of 49 countries that Microsoft is targeting spans six continents, and ranges from the UK and the US all the way through to Chile, Egypt, Kuwait, Indonesia and China." Interestingly enough, unauthorized copies of Vista might not be harming the company all that much: reader twitter was among several to contribute links to a related story at Computer World which highlights Microsoft attorney Bonnie MacNaughton's acknowledgement that pirates prefer Windows XP over Vista and Office 2003 over 2007.
Fixed that for you...
If it weren't for piracy, there'd be a sizable amount of people that would never even try Vista.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
Arrgg!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Does that make it "Talk Like an Anti-Pirate Day?"
Pirates seize Indian vessel with 13 crew members off Somalia
So I agree, piracy is a terrible problem. Our hearts go out to the families of the missing sailors.
However, I would think that Microsoft would be more concerned with copyright infringement that piracy. Are they planning an anti-copyright infringement day? September 19th might be appropriate.
Free Martian Whores!
Ironically, I'm downloading the latest release of TinyXP even as I type this.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
I have a stack of pirated SPORE discs that I'm handing out to my friends today.
There is a war going on for your mind.
What is this, some sort of Microsoft trademark? I don't see how it relates, unless "innovation" is the popular replace word for "profit", "monopoly", "greed", "lock-in", "control", etc.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Can they seriously just announce a "global" day?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I'm declaring today "Anti Microsoft Day." There. We're even.
...invest heavily in warships to help protect our shipping lanes. Nothing could be a better use of their money than helping stop the violence inherent in piracy on the high-seas. Already, many American warships are in stand-off confrontations with merchies taken over by pirates. I--
Sorry, what? This is about software? How Microsoft is concerned about companies who are missing one or two licenses out of 5,000 or 12 year old kids bragging that they got XP off of I13|<p1R4Cy.com? Pfff. In that case, screw 'em.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I pledge I will not pirate anything... today
Know my favorite part of Anti-Piracy Days? The parades. I mean, the parties are nice, and seeing the kids put out the Anti-Piracy decorations, but the parades are what are really great.
See, since pirates prefer these older programs, it means that the anti-piracy measures really ARE working, because the pirates don't like dealing with it! We told you so!
It's Global Talk Anti-Piracy Day
Because if you don't let them steal Windows they're not going to buy Office.
So M$ says and it's so huh...yeah right..
They can call today Thursday for all I care, doesn't make it so.
So sick of Corporations trying to squeeze every last dollar...
Eat the rich.
End of Line.
Expect global warming rate to accelerate.
Prevent Windows piracy: Use Linux instead!
Prevent Windows piracy. Use Linux instead.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
pirates prefer Windows XP over Vista and Office 2003 over 2007
Its really sad when even Pirates don't like your crap. That's like making a movie which even the pirates don't pirate.
Think about it, people who can get it for free, don't want it, even as it is free. This is not boding well for Microsoft.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
After the success of last month's "Talk Like A Pirate Day", this is just Microsoft just trying to cash in on the whole pirate thing.
Parents can't be expected to shell out for every single pirate related holiday. Enough is enough.
Anyway, don't Microsoft already have April 1st.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
I hereby declare today as Global Anti-Proprietary Software Day.
Corporations and computer users all over the world lose untold trillions of dollars dealing with the pain of using software that they cannot have full access to, or effectively move from one computer to another.
http://thepiratebay.org/search/Microsoft%20Vista/0/99/0 http://thepiratebay.org/search/%20Windows%20XP/0/99/0
By the way I agree with the minor correction. Everybody prefers XP and 2003 over Vista and 2007.
Where is the benefit of wasting more ram?
Where is the benefit of having less programs work?
Where is the benefit of having oh never mind.
Firewall the shit off when they quit supporting XP!
hmmm ... ... Piracy Day!
I declare today
Today is the day we recognize all of those Windows 98 SE Discs still floating around!
Now in preparation, we need a lot of Blank CD's or P2P programs, and your favorite Microsoft Product!
Lets give back to the world what everyone else paid so much for !!
Hurray !! Free cake and Ice Cream at the Redmond HQ!
Hurray!!!
Go go Gadget Nailgun!
...that I will not pirate Vista. Ever.
...with International Talk Like A Pirate Day.
I wonder...
Of course pirates prefer the older versions, they're a lot easier to keep running while cracked.
I just don't think it's worth it anymore to pirate newer MS software, you're constantly playing catch-up with their latest Windows Genuine Advantage stuff.
"Because of the more robust antipiracy and security features in Vista, most sophisticated piracy rings still continue to focus on XP."
I guess M$ just hasn't figured out that because the sell only a bloated, slow, and crappy OS and no longer sell the good one, the only option is to pirate it. DUH
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Should read:
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
all make merry and rejoice !! for today is yer day !!
tomorrow im thinking of creating a 'No Underpants Day' out of my butt. it should be easy, considering that it'll be a day with no underpants.
Read radical news here
I call today "Tuesday"
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
Shouldn't "global anti-piracy day" be called "global ninja domination day" instead?
> raise awareness of the damage to software innovation that Microsoft says is caused by piracy.
Which fades into insignificance when compared to the damage to software innovation caused by Microsoft !
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Microsoft initiatives finally are getting somewhere making that more and more people follows to the letter the licence of the software they are now using ...at least for the open source programs licenses.
And I'd like to remind everyone that the easiest way to combat piracy is by using open source software instead of Microsoft/Apple products whenever possible.
That would appear to include replacing, say, Xbox 360 games with open source games. Which Free video games do you recommend for me to play while kicking back on the couch? Is there an open-source first-person shooter that's as polished as, say, Gears of War or the Halo series? Or could you suggest an open-source alternative to Smash Bros. or Animal Crossing?
They should have called it "Talk-Like-A-Ninja Day". That have made it a far more successful anti-piracy campaign.
Can't we have international just-an-ordinary-nothing-special-day?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/antipiracy/default.mspx Gotta love the mind blowingly bizarre world we live in.
Putting "Bill Gates" in the name field here returns "Smugglin' Hubert Cutler" as the result, appropriately enough... :) Even better, though, "Steve Ballmer" becomes "Sea Monkey Baird"!
;)
Sea Monkey! lol
Hey! Is that a flying chai.. OOF...
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
Vista and Office 2k7 is so bad, pirates can't give it away for free.
Don't copy that floppy because they will track your ip address. We all know that piracy is a crime, right? You wouldn't steal a cheeseburger or a car, would you?
You know you have problems when even pirates don't want your software!
In contrast, the rest of the world celebrates the remaining 364 piracy days.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Also known as... Ninja Appreciation Day.
like monopoly abuse, green-mail and software patents. I'm opposed to copyright infringement, but I think Microsoft its larger competitors have done more damage to software innovation than the infringers have.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
First of all: Microsoft hasn't once delivered innovation.
Cause and effect: Piracy causes loss of income for proprietary software companies. Too much piracy causes bankruptcy. Bankruptcy causes Microsoft to go down. Microsoft going down means no more Windows. No more Windows causes massice Linux adoption. Massive Linux adoption brings (true) innovation to the masses.
In other words: Let's organise a world scale piracy day so we can have innovation :)
Here be signatures
Please buy an Xbox day.. Come on, were are getting desperate now...
You can as well announce that today is yesterday. Whatever.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
britney spears had her music downloaded from the internet. now she can only afford to buy the hugeprivatejet 3 instead of the hugeprivatejet 4. gates still worth like a trillion bajillion dollars. ill download me some software.
At least according to The Pirate Bay.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
...that today will also see the most downloads of microsoft products from torrent sites? =)
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense
Are they actively persuing pirates in Antarctica too? I thought the penguins ran linux
(and I am sure the government research stations at the south pole all have licensed copies of Windows and Office)
"Piracy is a robbery committed at sea, or sometimes on the shore, without a commission from a sovereign nation." ...
-- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate
...
/. once that sums up my feelings about intellectual property quite nicely - "I don't believe in imaginary property"
Sure, I download a few movies, few games, some music... But am I really a threat? The large majority of what I download is comprised by things that I wouldn't pay for if downloading wasnt possible, so nobody is losing any money from me.
If I exceptionally enjoy something that I've downloaded then I will allocate a portion of my meagre income to support it. But when corporations pull stunts like this it actually makes me want to pirate [sic] their material. I saw a line on
Now these draconian corporations make me out to be a swashbuckling maniac with an eyepatch and a pegleg? This is truly a mad state of affairs.
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
Software innovation is not damaged by piracy. It's damaged by software patents, restrictive licensing, and closed source. The only thing damaged by piracy is revenue (and by extension, funding for new development -- and in Microsoft's case, funding for marketing, buying out other companies' products, lawyers, ...).
Oh crap... I already finished my pirating for the day. I have to start checking the headlines BEFORE hand from now on.
With the increased success of Talk Like a Pirate Day, it was only a matter of time before Microsoft took notice. Talk Like a Tool Day is Microsoft's first entry in to this new, exciting market.
A certain website have updated their logo to mark this very special occasion: http://thepiratebay.org/
or http://static.thepiratebay.org/doodles/seedofsatan.jpg if they take it down.
I've already declared today "Global Anti-Proprietary Software Day." I will be launching several global initiatives aimed at raising awareness of the damage to software innovation that Microsoft and other proprietary vendors have caused. Fortunately, promoting alternatives to proprietary software is also a method of combating software "piracy," so I'm sure Microsoft won't mind sharing their day with me.
I don't care why you're posting AC
...download a cracked version of PhotoShop!
Looks like Pirate Bay is celebrating too, with the classic Gill Bates retro pic and subcaption "Bill Gates Made Me Do It!" So get in on the festivities, fire up https://thepiratebay.org/ and tagoo.ru and see whats on tap!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
But today is Trafalgar day!
Yah, I downloaded the announcement from a Torrent on the Pirate Bay.
And now they are hemorrhaging and trying to stop piracy, probably to keep their profits up. This really looks like the twilight years for Microsoft.
For once I'm glad that MS has taken up such a good cause. Perhaps he'll contribute something from the Gates Foundation to help combat the wretched conditions in Somalia that led to the piracy. That's where the true effort needs to be.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
"pirates prefer Windows XP over Vista and Office 2003 over 2007"
It's true! Samoli pirates admit had they not been using XP they likely would never have been able to board the Ukrainian ship, let alone seize control!
Somali pirates land Russian tanks in surprise haul
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Microsoft isn't messing about when it says 'global' either. The list of 49 countries that Microsoft is targeting spans six continents...
Arrrr, safe to assume that Antarctica be free of the thievin' scum? Set sail, me mateys! Thar be a vast untapped market just a-waitin' to be plundered!
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Another reason pirates prefer XP to Vista: people are actually willing to pay money for XP.
Even if they already HAVE Vista.
If Microsoft's idea of innovation is shipping an OS that people still don't want forced on them, then I'm all for limiting innovation.
Switch entirely over to open source and see piracy eliminated forever.
*** Don't be dull.***
Most people consider fisting pretty hardcore. What do you consider extreme?
I was going to call it "Make Microsoft use crappy software they don't like" Day, in retribution for me being forced to use their shitty products throughout the course of my career. I had to think long and hard to come up with some, but I think I've got it. Today Microsoft should be forced to install OS/2 Warp (Not one of the earlier ones that had some amount of good in them) and Lotus Notes. Bwawhahaha! Take THAT Microsoft! Now you'll know how I've felt all these years!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It is gone now but at one point it was there.
One of the original tags to this story was....
douchebags
Seriously slashdot?
I know you have to appeal to your fanboi base but come one.
And correct me if I am wrong but doesn't Apple sue EVERYONE who tries to do anything with their OS unless specifically approved by Jobs?
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
Global Talk Like An Anti-Pirate Day...
Arrr, how do ye do that then?
Proverbs 21:19
Maybe I'll convert a DVD to play on my Treo, or install a game and then apply a no-CD patch. Maybe I'll go really crazy install a game on an extra computer just so it can be more convenient to play sometimes.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
It's an error message that I get every time I boot up my copy of Windows Vista that was given to me directly by Microsoft reps.
"Not Genuine" - really?
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
I guess it didn't occur to M$ marketing that the absolute best way to avoid being a pirate is to simply use the typically superior FOSS alternatives. I hope they get what they ask for ...
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
if, through some quirk of the calendar, Pirate Day and Anti-Pirate Day fell on the same day? Would they annihilate each other? Could the energy released be harnessed somehow, say, to run a Beowulf cluster?
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Time to start favourite bittorrent client then!
... the appropriate response would be "Rrrrrhhhhhhhgggggggaaaaaaaaaaaaa" ?
I read today in the Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, OH's newspaper) that Microsoft has also brought legal action against 2 or 3 businesses in the Columbus area, alleging that these companies sold computers with "unlicensed copies of Windows XP and Office."
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2008/10/21/microsoft_lawsuit_2.ART_ART_10-21-08_C10_N3BLIFA.html?sid=101
I agree - piracy is a horrible thing. I mean, all those shipments of chinese-made software discs being stolen from ships by machine-gun toting pirates is just tragic. Not to mention when they attack the cruise ships that the software company CEO's are on and disrupt their R&R time, making it harder for them to run the company. And don't forget the coffee bean shipments - why when those ships are pirated thats going for the jugular - they know programmers cant work without coffee.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy
Shouldn't Anti-Piracy day just be known as Ninja Day?
I was planning on only downloading music and movies today anyway.
"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night." -Asimov
I'm officially calling tomorrow "Global anti-ripping people off with crappy software" day
How does that quote prove piracy isn't damaging? Pirates also prefer FPS games, but I don't see their piracy putting cash in the pockets of the people making those games, either.
Slashdot is now so comfortable in their hatred of all things MS, truth be damned, that they now believe random quotes validate all their goofball conspiracy theories.
What about Office 2000 and Windows 2000? I prefer those!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I could run Vista at home, but first I'd need to pirate a faster graphics board, as opposed to the built-in motherboard video, and probably pirate some more RAM.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
First they must show Me something that they Invented THEMSELVES LATELY , without using and I use the term using lightly, lawyers ,COURTS, Money, takeovers , buyouts or copyright patent offices
THEY ARE Declaring ANTI PIRACY Day ??
THAT IS THE BIGGEST JOKE I have heard THIS YEAR
AND MAYBE even into THE NEXT
Steal this post.
Reply to That ||
It could become just like say holy week.
You have a week long of serious reflection about ramifications of piracy, confessions of piracy and penances paid like no playing pirated games for 40 days.
You precede this with a week long festival of piracy where you get it all out of your system prior to that.
an then afterwards you celebrate getting through anti-piracy week with a bunch of piracy!
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Piracy is a way of life and a religion. Microsoft are just bigots against Pirates. I am a Pirate Ninja, everyone knows that.
I contribute to society as well, heck I've fixed Windows machines like a million times due to Microsoft bugs and flaws. Microsoft owes me a lot for fixing their problems and I even used to be a beta tester for them. Can't they cut us pirates some slack?
If it wasn't for BBSes pirating Windows 3.0 and 3.1 Windows would have never taken off and we'd all be using GEM, GEOS, or OS/2 instead.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Priacy will rise by more than 5% today because of this. :)
Whoosh. That's the sound of you missing the joke and then getting modded funny as a consolation prize.
Even if OS did produce a line up of great games (which at this point, it hasn't IMO). They could not be made available for the Xbox.
HP makes a computer called the Pavilion Slimline that's not much bigger than an Xbox 360. Install Linux onto such a slim PC and plug it through a VGA or DVI-to-HDMI cable into an HDTV, or plug it through a $40 converter to an SDTV. So the dearth of Free games is still a software issue.
REDMOND, Indian Ocean, Monday - Microsoft has announced that today is "Global Anti-Piracy Day," with the aim to raise awareness of the damage to software innovation caused by robbery and murder on the high seas.
"Robbery, rape and brutal murder on the high seas is just like people copying that floppy," sobbed billionaire Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "You wouldn't steal a patented software process, why would you steal a cargo ship?"
Piracy off the coast of Somalia has made these the most dangerous waters for software development in the world. The pirates use hacked zombie PCs, sometimes impounding codebases and programming staff at the point of their Heckler & Koch MP3s and demanding warez before they are released.
A famous attack late last year against one luxury system was foiled when the crew scared the pirates off with the Righteous Mathematical Stentor, an ear-splitting acoustic device developed in Massachusetts as a "non-lethal" free software advocacy weapon.
Somali clan leaders have agreed to end over two decades of Unix wars in the country and have made attempts to address the piracy problem. But the tremendous lawlessness off the long eastern Somali coastline reflects the difficulty of controlling the flow of information on the Internet.
In one breakthrough, pirate chiefs have resolved that they will never pirate Windows Vista or Office 2007. "Not even with your dick."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Microsoft Anti-Piracy Day is also known as a world-wide Linux install fest. When you install Linux, not only do you stop stealing from poor starving Mr. Gates and his poor, overworked and underpaid programmers, you're actually upgrading to something better. So, it's a win for everybody.
Microsoft go the date wrong, though: Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex will be released on October 30, not today. Their mistake is understandable, though: the RC is out in a couple of days.
Somebody needs to take a stand against these lawless Somali pirates and their brazen attacks on shipping lanes! I'm surprised that Microsoft feels that strongly about this issue, though... did they confiscate a boatload of Vista CDs?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I mean, if it helps MS, I guess there must be some mileage in protesting about people copying Linux at will. They ..
What? That's OK?
Look, how the hell are we ever going to tell people to use Linux then, with it being free and all that? You really have no idea how to sell a product, do you? Explain to me otherwise how that expensive crap sells and the free stuff doesn't? You wi..
What? It doesn't sell? Ah, yes, bummer. There's the problem then. Charge for the disk or something.
And give me coffee back. Now.
Insert
Fantastic point
You know?
I can't find a single thing they did invent lately, . I give them the PC itself , but Lately , I see Nothing that didn't already exist in some form.
I announce stuff like this all the time.
Sorry boss, it's Global Anti-Piracy Day. That's a GLOBAL holiday I believe... I will see you Wednesday, maybe. It may be another "day".
It reminds me when I was in high school one of the class clowns actually made up signs and advertised that a particular day was "Skip School Day". Many of us decided that was good enough for us. I believe he got suspended for that one.
Too bad there isn't some regulatory body that might do the same to MS... and the rest, for constantly pretty much just making stuff up and lying out their ass.
Does that mean that for today, Microsoft are going to stop charging their pirate prices, and sell windows at a reasonable price, without lots of vendor lockin, and without the horrific license that you must 'agree' to?
I celebrated today by downloading Fedora 9!
--
My parents went to Slashdot and all I got was this lousy sig.
>> the aim is to raise awareness of the damage to software innovation that Microsoft says is caused by piracy
Thats funny, coming from Microsoft. They haven't been innovative for years, and are stifling software innovation even more by patenting every non-original idea they can get away with.
That's just asking for it.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
We have Offoce 2000 at work. Does Office 2007 do anything Office 2003 doesn't? Or even anything Office 2000 doesn't? What makes it worth the extra Five hundred dollars per license????
That is exactly why I switched from the Microsoft platform at home. I have my desktop, laptop, the wife the same, and had various foster kids circulate through. The product simply isn't priced for the home family. Old versions were simply installed on every machine in the house from the one purchased copy. New versions cost more and are less useful with the anti-piracy stuff, so even the first copy is no longer purchased. Maybe they make up for the loss of me buying a copy by those who do buy 2 or more copies who didn't before.
The alternatives are rapidly replacing the Microsoft OS and productivity system of choice. My dad bought a Mac as many have. Many others have installed Ubuntu with it's default office suite. It's legal, cuts piracy, and isn't good for Microsoft.
Microsoft is losing pirates. They are losing them to the alternatives and in doing so, are losing control of the platform.
The truth shall set you free!
I know you're just trying to troll the GP, but seriously -- who are these mythical "most other people"? The only folks I've run into that claim to like the MSO 2007 ribbon interface are posters here on Slashdot. My wife's previous school had MSO 2007 installed drive-by fashion unannounced and mid-year by their socially-clueless IT guy, and it caused no end of trouble. Suddenly teachers (and sometimes students) would take / email docs home and be unable to open them. Suddenly no one could find where anything was supposed to be, for some of them after *finally* having gotten used to the menus in MSO 2003 through much effort and frustration. Suddenly macros that helped glue the office's processes together stopped working.
Okay, granted, only the second issue above actually has to do with the ribbon UI, so to come back to that, the changeover was hell. Tens of hours per person, possibly more for some folks, that had been spent getting familiar with the old UI was completely undone by MS's ribbon infatuation. What a complete waste of time. And for what? MSO 2007 sure doesn't offer any new functionality. Heck, it breaks more than it innovates. The new UI was annoying as hell for me (still is when I have to use MSO 2007), and I'm a geek. And never mind the myriad frustrating assumptions MS made about who uses what most often when they designed the ribbon. Imagine how beyond-the-pale maddening it must be for users who are dyslexic (my wife, some of her colleagues, some of her students) and have trouble dealing with computers anyway.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Incidentally, V!NCENT can speak English better than I can speak any other language.
Personally, I prefer the Captain Underpants Name Generator for coming up with good aliases. "Bill Gates" becomes "Boobie Appletush", and "Steve Ballmer" becomes "Crusty Applebrain".
Hmm, I think we've discovered that the MS upper echelons are actually working for -- "Crusty Bubblefanny" (Steve Jobs' mild-mannered alter ego)! Clearly, Windows Vista was *designed* to suck in order to boost Apple sales!
Of course, why didn't I see it before? It all makes so much more sense now...
:P
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Thanks MS for promoting Free software.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Another trip to the Hallmark store to get Anti-piracy day cards.
Since nobody (including TFA) has thusfar linked to the official information page on Microsoft's site...
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/antipiracy/default.mspx
Microsoft has a 6-minute video you can watch in "Zune-quality" WMV or "Broadcast-quality" MPEG.
Thanks to MarketWatch for actually linking to the original source.
the JoshMeister on Security
You guys wish I was not reporting a consensus opinion. Call me when Vista surpasses Mac's market share in the general population or GNU/Linux developer interest. In layman's terms, massive fail.
This just in, Steve Ballmer says Vista is as good as M$ can do. Don't say he's crazy for doing the same thing and expecting different results. Sell, sell, sell!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Urban Terror is Free. Plays on Linux, OS X, and Windows.
http://www.urbanterror.net/
More of a contemporary Counter Strike than a Call of Duty, but a good game none the less.
The list of 49 countries that Microsoft is targeting spans six continents, and ranges from the UK and the US all the way through to Chile, Egypt, Kuwait, Indonesia and China
China and the US I can see. Egypt, Kuwait, and Indonesia? Is that like a thing in those places, to pirate microsoft? Seems kind of pointless if not.
"Hey Kuwait? Yeah, we realize you have your hands full with your own problems, not to mention whatever "war on terror" stuff we're having you do, but could you also find time to enforce our patents? Like if you see anyone using microsoft, could you ask them if they bought it legitimately? Because you know, it hurts our workers when you allow piracy. Also, more to the point, we're going to sanction your ass. Well, unless you say you're helping us with our war on terror. Or give us some oil. Or say 'Hooray for democracy.' Or at least don't advocate the destruction of Israel. Out loud. Look, just SAY you care somewhat about software piracy. A non-verbal sign will do. Just like a 'thumbs up' if we say 'so you're not going to steal office today.' Please????"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
[x] Download Adobe CS4 Master Collection
[x] Download random season of random CSI
[x] Celebrate "Anti-Piracy" day
> raise awareness of the damage to software innovation that Microsoft say is caused bu piracy.
Make aware of the damage to software innovation that software patents cause.
you might have something there. if windows wasn't pirated people may be more inclined to use a less system resource intensive OS, in which case they may get much more mileage out of their current PCs.. resulting in less landfill waste and less demand for production of new machines.
Explain to me the difference between this and Apple suing everyone for even thinking about doing something with their OS?
Did Microsoft ever wonder about the correlation that exists between pirates disliking Vista and the user community as a whole disliking Vista? While I am indifferent about the piracy debate, it seems that pirates are generally tech savvy people who review and distribute information about emerging software. Negative reviews from them will likely cause a ripple effect across the user community. It's great to see MS creating goodwill by suing their own potential user community. It's right out of the RIAA playbook.
I think someone needs to put together a special day (today would be good) called the Global Tax Anti-Piracy Day!
Tax Piracy is when you have a company in one country, but then setup a sham company in another country so you can avoid paying your fair share of taxes. These Pirate companies plunder the benefits of the real country of origin, taking advantage of all the infrastructure benefits such as schools, roads, and police - but pay for very little or any of what they take by loopholes in their real country's tax system!
Just think of the billions of dollars lost by honest companies, and their lost innovation because of these Tax Pirate Companies. Think of the increased taxes that honest companies must pay. Think of the children who can't go to good schools because Pirate companies plundered the public coffers! This is a threat that must be stopped, and the pirate company's officers punished!
I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress -J Adams
http://thepiratebay.org/
I reluctantly moved to Vista a couple of months ago for DX10, and expected all kinds of problems because I have read all the FUD on the net about how much trouble it is, and then I find that its actually better than XP, I have almost NO problems and its prettier... %99 of the complaints I read about Vista are due to ignorance rather than fact... now if I could I would probably run a free OS, but until they can play my games I think I'll stick to Vista (2 G280's in Linux would be a waste of good money)I know there is a bias towards anything but MS on slashdot, but honestly if you are a gamer, you need windows, and I'm afraid Vista is just better than XP, it uses my GPU to draw my desktop saving CPU, and makes better use of my memory. Thinking back to when XP first came out, I remember the same types of complaints then as well...
Well, this was short notice! It looks like today I have only one decoration to put up for Global Pirate Day (soon to be renamed Global ACT Like a Pirate Day).
My decoration is, let's see here, oh! It's an image:
[PC GAMES] Silent Hill 3 - Multilenguage.iso
Next year I will be sure that it has a little more to do with Microsoft, though they haven't put out a good product since Freelancer.
Advertising and corruption is useless when the product pushed is broken.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iHtymB-lQIc
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
May I suggest that we make tomorrow the Global Piracy Day in return? Everyone download at least one movie or game.
Seriously. When something's so common that your grandma does it, it's time to question the law that makes it illegal.
I don't say it automatically is right if enough people do it - speeding is an example, or drunk driving. But still, it's time to question the law and rework it. Laws codify the rules of society, they don't make them - contrary to what some politicians wish to believe.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Clearly, today must be the Pastafarian version of All Hallow's Eve.
Now, where did I put that FSM mask?
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
No, you can't. All the days are already taken.
Rethinking email
global anti-corporate-tyrants-who-can-just-up-and-impose-labels-on-days-internationally-without-consulting-anyone day? I'd be more in favor of a piracy day than an anti-piracy day - how silly!
Microsoft and all these big name IP holders have, for far too long, used piracy as a scapegoat for everything from dwindling stock prices, to terrorism. What companies know but will never admit to is piracy is a market force that is in response to pricing and demand. Just as no company will ever get sales from every single potential customer (at least in the free market), there will never be 0% piracy in a product that is in demand.
As it stands there will always be a tiny percentage of people who will pirate a product. This minority is not a missed sale because it is in reality as non-sale. That small minority would probably never have legitimately purchased any copy of Windows and wants things for free. You cannot lose a sale that you never had in the first place. Now when you get beyond that small core group of pirates you get into potential customers/lost sales. As I said earlier this 2nd tier of software pirates would probably purchase a copy of windows if it was a price they were willing to pay. With a product that is so abundant as Windows there isn't a clear case of "I am not willing to pay X dollars for windows, so I will move on". This is where the demand comes in, people who don't agree with the price and are willing to take it should tell Microsoft two things, they won't buy it at it's current price and are only potential customers if the price was more reasonable to them. This may sound selfish or morally unsound but it nevertheless is a market force, even if illegal. If Microsoft wants the 2nd tier of customers to pay for their product they will have to do something that most large businesses and holders of IP seem to have forgotten, adjust to the market!
Implementing DRM, Activation, and using the law to crack down on pirates will never stamp out piracy as people usually adapt and adjust methods of getting something they really want. Look at the XP activation sequence, it seemed like a solid approach until someone figured out how to disable it. Windows XP is just as pirated as earlier version without activation. Nothing has changed except for pissing off legitimate customers. It becomes a shame when a pirated version of a piece of software becomes easier to handle than the legitimate version.
Microsoft already makes a pretty penny on the revenue that counts, a perpetual stream of income from OEMs, as well as business licenses. If Microsoft were to lower their prices on retail copies of windows, it would most probably lead to increased retail sales from non-business consumers. Businesses usually follow all the rules because their operations are under more scrutiny than an individual. This global anti-piracy initiative will not do anything except show how full of shit Microsoft is in trying to force the market on their own terms.
Its funny that Anti-Piracy day comes a day after Gears of War 2 was leaked more than two weeks before its release date. For anyone who doesn't know Gears of War 2 is the strongest franchise on the Xbox outside of the Halo franchise.
As nabsltd noted above, menus are pretty standard for all other MS-based software -- except for this ribbon garbage in MSO 2007. Now, while I'm generally a fan of software companies listening to their users, the question MS asked and the answers they were given, funnily enough, had nothing to do with completely reworking the menu UI. So basically MS *wasn't* listening. Had they asked instead, "should we completely rework the menu UI?", I rather suspect that most existing users of pre-2007 MSO (i.e., the vast bulk of the potential market for MSO upgrades) would have replied with a resounding "hell, NO!" in consideration of all the time and energy *already* put into learning where the heck everything is. I mean, sheesh, with MSO 2007, they could have at least offered an easily-findable obvious option to toggle back into the older menu structure.
But, sadly, it is not the problem the users faced directly, nor is it the solution they wanted. Which is why so many folks are not a fan of paying through the nose for an "upgrade" that offers no appreciable new functionality while simultaneously guaranteeing hours of frustration as users try to find things again. Whee.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
'let's ignore microsoft day'
I was going to make a joke about posting here with your sockpuppet accounts when I noticed this, so never mind that.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Imaginary NEWS: "Rakadam has announced that today is Global Anti-Microsoft Day. Launching several global initiatives, the aim is to raise awareness of the damage to software innovation that Microsoft caused...."
if piracy damages software innovation... why does microsoft care?
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Wouldn't it be less confusing to just call it Global Ninja Day?
Go download Suse 11 and install it over your Windows. You forgot to include that all users love a operating system that doesn't take 16 minutes to boot up.
That ribbon convinced me to give a shot to openoffice (more precisely a version of oxygen office). Which is still quite sluggish, incompatible and crashy. But at least looks familiar! compared to Office 2007.
Good work, Microsoft!
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
My primary language is Dutch, which has pretty much the same grammer as German. I am 19 years old and the only thing you get to learn here at school in the Netherlands is "Hello what's your name?", "Do you like meatballs" and some Brittish-English sayings.
The problem that I have is that when have something inside my head that I want to say in English than it is really hard to convert it to English. It's like converting a .jpeg image to .svg, if you know what I mean ;)
Here be signatures
Do you think that they are subtly hinting that downloading free software ("piracy, open source - it's all the same") is "damaging to software innovation"?
They are using the same language of "piracy" as they have done for Open Source and (especially) the GPL: it limits their ability to "innovate" (embrace, extend and extinguish). This is possibly setting the scene to link the two in the minds of ill-informed people like legislators, managers and the general public (in no particular order).
"Piracy" and FOSS are both threats to Microsoft. One is illegal and the other perfectly legal and legitimate. But Microsoft would love to see them linked, and to have FOSS tarred with the brush of "illegal, illegitimate".
I am anarch of all I survey.
photo available here
This kind of sounds like the suggestion that "Thanksgiving" was actually introduced as a celebratory euphemism for the quiet eradication of certain mid-western native american tribes during Abraham Lincoln's presidency. (It's kind of big with the conspiracy nuts...)
8==8 Bones 8==8
I know one of Microsoft's folks in the SQL Premier Field Engineer role and he pirates more music and movies with his M$ owned laptop then any other individual I know. I wouldn't want to brand all M$ employees as bad apples just because of one employee that I know but M$ does nothing to police there machines for pirated content and stop the use of company infrastructure to download this content. M$ you need to put your money where you mouth is and start cleaning your own closet before you start worrying about others peoples dirty laundry.
If "Talk like a pirate day" coincides (collides) with "Global antipiracy day," does a singularity ensue?
I'm offended by this. How is it possible that the very corporation who killed a lot of innovations by the end of the 90's is now proposing a "Global" anti piracy day? This from one of the richest companies in the hole world who taxes everyone who want's to use a computer, whether it has their software or not, and be able to do it because of their brutal monopolistic practices that not even governments can stop now around the world.
It's just ridiculous how far you can bend reality with enough money. That's the main reason why I'm starting to think that capitalism is very good for corporations, and very bad for humans.
How about we declare the very same day "The Pirate Day" which in the future will be regarded as the one who saved humanity from being enslaved by corporations.
I rented and burned off a copy of "The Incredible Hulk" today!
Piracy doesn't do anything but give M$ a smaller ego and less money. They spend countless dollars in R&D to create DRM and other anti-piracy movements like this - all time that could be spent on fixing their poorly constructed products, such as Vista. It is their own actions that are "damaging software innovation". Take a look at the free software and open source communities and how quickly they are advancing. Innovating through community effort. By this standard, "piracy" would be promoting innovation, not hindering it.
In honor of MS's Anti-piracy Day, I downloaded a hacked and cracked version of windows.
Now, who do I dislike enough to give them the CD? Hmmm...
rts008 on a public terminal
If it comes to anecdotes now, here's mine. The only people I've seen that didn't like the Ribbon were programmer types, every single one of them. Everywhere I worked, all managers who used MSOffice liked 2007, and so did the analysts.
They didn't invent the personal computer. MITS/Altair kits, Apple ][, TRS-80 preceded Microsoft's merging of a third-party DOS with an IBM boat anchor.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Well I, for one, am calling this day "gotta get up with a hangover and get my ass to work" day.
Yeah, seasons 4 and 5 are shaky, but it picks up again after that. I blame global warming.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
"The list of 49 countries that Microsoft is targeting spans six continents, and ranges from the UK and the US all the way through to Chile, Egypt, Kuwait, Indonesia and China."
M$ knows we exist! We're screwed.
Anonymous Chilean Coward.
Their goal is not to stop piracy, but to control it. They know this, but will never admit it. I started with Windows 3.1 in 6th grade and the 1st OS I bought was XP64. But I had many MS OSes installed: Win9x/ME (all editions), NT4, 2000, XP Vista. After trying Vista and end of production for XP arriving made me buy XP64 so I could still catch it (me=Vista hater).
The point of this explanation is that I gained a lot of SW/HW knowledge and there are few that can solve an issue which I'm unable. If I would have been limited to an OS bough by parents, I'm sure I would not have been in the IT business.
Also, why do you think there are so many 3rd country people (majority from India; if it's not 3rd country, please don't kill me) that work in the US in IT? Make them take a polygraph test and I'm sure none of them started with legal SW.
And let's not forget that piracy numbers/losses are IMPOSSIBLE to obtain. And if anti-piracy measures would be effective, not many would actually buy the product (they would not use it anymore). Come to think of it, yes, apply anti-piracy measures so linux could spread more and improve faster and game companies to start an interest in it. Because gaming is 80% of why I still use Windows (and 15% a good file manager like total commander). My router is gentoo, my laptop is ubuntu (although I do have the OEM XP on it I barely use it).
Need not be so hard on the pirates, why they're doing their job as well as can be expected, increasing in number by the thousands, probably each day. What they need to focus on is to heal the rift between our lost privacy, too many viruses, and way to much advertising. With gimmicks like these, who needs pirates? Bill Gates of heaven, or off hell, please take your time to tell this tale to those of us within your spell.
Bugger.
Couldn't we try to organise it so that two completely opposite causes have the same day and they'd cancel out?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."