Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

MS Gives Free Licenses To Oppressed Nonprofits

Posted by samzenpus on from the here-you-got-enough-trouble dept.

victorl19 writes "Microsoft is vastly expanding its efforts to prevent governments from using software piracy inquiries as a pretext to suppress dissent. It plans to provide free software licenses to more than 500,000 advocacy groups, independent media outlets and other nonprofit organizations in 12 countries with tightly controlled governments, including Russia and China."

3 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Repost by cappp · · Score: 3, Informative
    Nope. It's an update. Look at the date of the story on NYTimes, it's 2 days ago. More importantly, it adds new info' - specifically

    But it is now extending the program to other countries: eight former Soviet republics — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — as well as China, Malaysia and Vietnam. Microsoft executives said they would consider adding more.

    If anything we now know that Microsoft was a little deceptive when they previously said they were creating a blanket license, clearly it's based on territory and limited in scope. That's not to say its a bad thing, but certainly not what was originally sold.

  2. Re:Repost by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 5, Informative

    I hate to tell you this, but itworld.com is not an official Microsoft outlet. What Microsoft actually said was:

    One challenge, however, is that some NGOs in a number of countries, including Russia, are unaware of our program or do not know how to navigate its logistical processes, which involves ordering the donated software through a Microsoft partner. We'll solve this problem by providing a unilateral NGO Software License that runs automatically from Microsoft to NGOs and covers the software already installed on their PCs. We'll make this new, non-transferable license applicable to NGOs in a number of countries, including in Russia.

    So they started in a few (mostly unnamed) countries and now they have expanded it.

  3. Link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    For anyone who wants to see the link without being prompted to register to nytimes.com:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/world/17russia.html