From Slashdot:
The BBC is reporting that Microsoft has reached a deal with the Indonesian government on pirated software - which is believed to affect around 50,000 government PCs. Under the deal, Indonesia will pay $1 per copy and agree to buy legally in the future. Indonesia’s information minister, Sofyan Djalil, said, “Microsoft is being realistic. They can’t force developing countries like us to solely use legal software since we can’t afford it. They want us to gradually reduce our use of it.”
Where is the Pakistan govt.? How much do they pay for their software? Legalizing Windows for all govt. computers even for a dollar apiece means buying licenses for MS Office, and all the other programs the govt. is using.
I can imagaine the local Microsoft rep. asking Indonesia a few days after this deal: “So, what do u guys use on these shiny legal windows you just bought?”
Of course, in Pakistan the answer would be somewhere along these lines:
Bureacrat: “Solitaire? oye Aftab, what else do we use?”
Aftab, scratching his head wakes up from his slumber: “ummm… Boss, what computer are you talking about?”
Boss: “The ten computers alloted to us by the Ministry! What are we doing with them???”
Aftab: “But Boss, they never sent us the power leads so we haven’t turned them on yet!”
RE: $1 + FreewareThe deal is an good idea, though your argument that it would force the Indonesian govt to buy legal copies of MS Office and so on is valid, bear in mind that it is a lot easier to get users to switch to OpenOffice than it is to get everyone to switch to Linux (despite the fact that they would still be using OpenOffice). My point is that $1 gives you support, a legal copy, access to all the security patches in the future and allows you to use a platform you are comfortable with.
A smart IT administrator would take this opportunity to load up the PC’s with freewares and reduce licensing costs. At $1 Windows beats the pants off even Free copies of Linux! (for me at least, dont get me wrong, Linux is my favorite pass-time, but MS has a monopoly for a reason!)
—
Big Sexy’s Got Cha Numba!
RE: $1 + FreewareRegarding the security patches, if the Indonesian government ever got hacked and word got out they were running Windows, that’ll just be more reason for other governments to adapt linux. MS is not only trying to set a precedent for legal use, but also protecting their own image. They would happily give away free copies of windows and make money on applications. Once the dependency is built into the infrastructure, versioning will yield revenues down the line. The initial battle is to secure the base.
RE:if there is anything at all that all the problems with Firefox teaches us (research by symantec showed that IE is safer than Firefox), it is that is that Linux is not necessarily safer… it’s just less bothered!
Big Sexy’s Got Cha Numba!