MESSAGE
| DATE | 2004-06-18 |
| FROM | David Sugar
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| SUBJECT | |
From owner-hangout-desteny-at-mrbrklyn.com Fri Jun 18 22:01:21 2004 X-UIDL: 7/Z"!D-/!!nA8!!0'F!! Received: from www2.mrbrklyn.com (LOCALHOST [127.0.0.1]) by mrbrklyn.com (8.12.11/8.11.2/SuSE Linux 8.11.1-0.5) with ESMTP id i5J21L9Z020946 for ; Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:01:21 -0400 Received: (from mdom-at-localhost) by www2.mrbrklyn.com (8.12.11/8.12.3/Submit) id i5J21KBS020945 for hangout-desteny; Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:01:20 -0400 X-Authentication-Warning: www2.mrbrklyn.com: mdom set sender to owner-hangout-at-www2.mrbrklyn.com using -f Received: from mail.ostel.com ([216.218.222.122]) by mrbrklyn.com (8.12.11/8.11.2/SuSE Linux 8.11.1-0.5) with ESMTP id i5J21K4x020940 for ; Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:01:20 -0400 Received: by mail.ostel.com (Postfix, from userid 1005) id AF8C52F289E; Fri, 18 Jun 2004 19:12:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from home.sys (pool-68-239-159-99.nwrk.east.verizon.net [68.239.159.99]) by mail.ostel.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0E2D92F287B; Fri, 18 Jun 2004 19:12:39 -0700 (PDT) From: David Sugar Organization: Open Source Telecom Corp. To: nylug-talk-at-nylug.org Date: Fri, 18 Jun 2004 22:08:10 -0400 User-Agent: KMail/1.6.2 Cc: hangout-at-nylxs.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200406182208.10251.dyfet-at-ostel.com> Sender: owner-hangout-at-mrbrklyn.com Precedence: bulk Reply-To: David Sugar List: New Yorker GNU Linux Scene Admin: To unsubscribe send unsubscribe name-at-domian.com in the body to hangout-request-at-www2.mrbrklyn.com X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on www2.mrbrklyn.com X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.5 required=4.0 tests=BAYES_01 autolearn=ham version=2.63 X-Spam-Level: X-Keywords: X-UID: 37196 Status: RO X-Status: A Content-Length: 1864 Lines: 42
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 ____________________________ NYLXS: New Yorker Free Software Users Scene Fair Use - because it's either fair use or useless.... NYLXS is a trademark of NYLXS, Inc
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