[aklug] Re: Microsoft Global Anti-Piracy day

Hello Aklug!

Listen to this email's theme song [0] ! The devil is always in the details ...

I mostly shadow the list these days...
Oh how I miss the land of my homeland (Alaska) stranded in the middle
of this desert wasteland).
I saw this reply and just had to speak up.

I was really busy at work today so could not reply until after work.
Here is the question I just had to reply to ...

On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 3:16 PM, Jim MacDonald <jim@macdonald.org> wrote:
> Isn't EVERY DAY anti-piracy day at M$

No, not in reality. In reality over the long years it has always been
a lot more like this ...

Here are some quotes from Bill Gates alone ...

"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's
piracy than when there's not, Are you kidding? You can get the real
thing, and you get the same price."

Source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/23/100134488/index.htm

"About 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people
don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. As long as they
are 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."

Source: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-212942.html

"Stolen's a strong word. It's copyrighted content that the owner
wasn't paid for. So yes." (On his use of pirated videos).

Source: http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/2803

That's just a few but it gives you a few clues ... that even they
(Microsoft) are obviously adept at rationalizing these kind of things
(just like the customer does when they 'borrow', though not quite in
equal ways)

Besides I think we should all be celebrating our own free software and
open source holidays, our holidays. I don't think it's that great to
celebrate theirs :P but using theirs to further ours, that has to be
another story entirely ...

In the end, I still don't think we are actively taking enough of our
own independent action to ensure our own continued growth and
ultimately survival. It just always feel like we are just barely able
to keep our heads above the water swimming alone in the middle of the
ocean with the sharks moving in closer ...

In closing here is a quote that stuck me recently.

The Doctor: "There are fixed points throughout time where things must
stay exactly the way they are. This is not one of them. This is an
opportunity! Whatever happens here will create its own timeline, its
own reality, a temporal tipping point. The future revolves around you,
here, now, so do good!"

Do good Aklug, Do good!

Cheers,
//kracker

[0] Theme

Song: Sole - Dispatches From The American Fall - I Think I'm Ben Bernanke ...
Audio: http://www.youtube.com/?v=q4XRsrlt3Ng
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Received on Fri Oct 14 18:55:21 2011