Indeed, not just Microsoft is the source of the use of the word piracy in the software context. It is BSA (Business Software Association), which is an organization that represent the interest of Microsoft, Adobe, Corel and other software giants. And they have choosen this word exactly to compare not only copyright infringement to what sea pirates did, but also any move of a potential customer that do not end with the purchase of one license from them, even they qualify use of GNU/Linux (and other free OS-s, such as BSD) as piracy and fight against it.

But what must be done is creating these replacement applications so they run at least on GNU/Linux so the MS Windows (and to a lesser extent Apple’s OS X) operating systems can be written out of existence and the history books. For now the pragmatic choice is to keep both of these for the tasks only these can handle, but in the longer term they shouldn’t be necessary (and neither the x86 architecture).

And I say that as a free software developer and advocate who sometimes reluctantly has to make the choice of deploying non-free software in a business setting.

Shane attached these AdSense bits because he pays the hosting bill (about 50 gigs a month). I’ve just passed him an E-mail because I hope to get rid of the ads once and for all (they have nothing to do with me and they damage credibility). He has already blocked quite a few domains that intruded such as ads from Microsoft.com (anti Linux). The binding to ads is not controlled by the site BTW (blame Google)

Roy Schestowitz did not make the claim that Microsoft was the source of piracy. Period.
You.Are.Wrong. Copyright infrigment, is when you use the work of others unlawfully. For example. If I were to download Mac OS X or Windows Vista using torrents or DC hubs, then go on to install them on computers using cracks/key gens, that would be piracy because I’m stealing someone elses work. Regarding the ignorant statement about “software pirates” – You can NOT violate the license agreement, when there was NO license agreement in the first place, i.e. pirated software.

Microsoft isn’t the source of the term piracy in the software context, so just drop it already. The statement that they are comparing copyright infringement to raping and plundering is simply stupid. And what they are talking about isn’t copyright infringement anyways. It is violation of the licensing agreement. It is the software license that is being violated when you install multiple copies of Windows on different machines, not the copyright. The copyright says that the software belongs to Microsoft and you can’t claim otherwise. Software pirates aren’t doing that. They are violating the license agreement, which says that you are licensed to use the software on one machine only.

LinuxCanuck:
So while to talk a good story, you are advertising for Novell. Is this a joke?
/Presumably when you sign up for AdSense either you give preferences to the subject discussed on your website, or Google automatically (not deliberatly) decides on an Ad. When I went to Roy’s site it was advertising up.times5 (easy server monitoring etc). Anti-piracy software? Theres no such thing… when you make something up, at least make up something credible… Whatever runs on Windows, can run on Linux via Wine. Now shut the hell up you fricking noob.

Your article was fantastic, well thoughtout, well excecuted, – brilliant. Also, I’ve looked at some of the rest of your articles they’re really quite interesting, I usually skim read news headlines looking for something vaguely readable, I found myself reading each heading and description with your articles.

Congrats on getting on LinuxToday.

Stupid is as stupid does, as Forrest Gump would say. If you insist on mocking yourself, nobody will take you seriously.

Oh, yes, at the top of the page for this story is a Google Ad for Anti-piracy software which probably runs on… Windows! How about getting real and having no ads.

To quote:

“Annually? So over 5 years its $50 and seven years (as per XP) its $70 and so on. Soon they will pay 70% of the original cost. How nice of you Microsoft. Now you are a rental company.

“My question to M$ is this. What the hell are you going to do with boot time computers that are cheaper than your Operating system? I think you are clutching at straws trying to sell a polished turd as cheap until you realise the TCO is on par with a Company in the US.

“Even if it sounds like you are giving it away, you aren’t. You are not nice people! “

>> You will realise, when you venture out into the real world, that the MS/Linux arguments are over – no-one cares anymore. We all just want to get our work done.

pete, $0 is very good, but the control over the software is VERY good.

You are correct that in numerous quarters, Linux has taken over and the adopters are not looking back [NYSE just recently + many individual users each and every day].

Linux is control and potential that closed source software by definition cannot give. $0 is nice. A fast acting and growing community is also nice. Appearing much more frequently on mainstream machines pre-loaded is convenient and will help it spread even faster. That’s nice too.

And from such humble beginnings too. Just a few computer programmers “scratching their itches” it has ballooned to now include support from most major vendors, except Microsoft.