MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-06-18 |
| FROM | David Sugar
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| SUBJECT | |
The best English language reference/link for this may be
found at http://hackers.propus.com.br/~pablo/blog/?id=31.
Apparently Senior Sergio Amadeu is being sued by
Microsoft for comparing the dispersion and deliberate
tolerance of unlicensed copies of Microsoft Software to
the actions of a drug dealer.
Since the original is in Portugese, and there are no good
translations of his exact original remarks, or what
context they were delivered under, I do not know how what
Mr. Amadeu said differs in any way from what others have
similarly said in the past on this topic. However, this is
actually a comparison that has been made by many others
before.
Quite honestly, I can see many ways to make this
comparison. I have often thought Microsoft's practice of
deliberating offering time limited software for free (as
in cost) to people, in addition to ignoring piracy until
their products become ubiquitous in a nation and then
insisting that a given nation change it's national laws so
that they can crack down on users, such as is happening,
for example in the fine Republic of Macedonia, is very
much like the streetcorner junkie offering people their
first few hits of acid for free.
But you do not have to take my word on their international business model;
"Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people
don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. And as long as they're
going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted,
and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next
decade." Bill Gates, in a 1998 talk to university students (and printed in
Fortune Magazine)
David
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