Now this is the funniest thing I’ve heard for AGES!!! Microsoft are suing the Minister of IT in Brazil, Sergio Amadeu for saying Microsoft are drug dealers 🙂 He has compared Microsoft to drug dealers when they are offering 1 year free licences, because it is like offering the first hit for free.
I have to say, I completely agree. There was an organisation in Australia who were refurbishing old computers with old versions of windows, and then giving the computers to the poor. Microsoft sued them for licence violation, saying they should have bought more licences (ie – no one can use a perfectly good second hand licence?) and then Mircosoft offered free for one year licences to the people being donated machines. Sound stupid? IT IS! How on earth were people who can’t afford machines in the first place going to come up with the ridiculous fees for a licence after a year, and then every few years after that?
At least Brazil has the gumption to say what everyone else is thinking. At WSIS Brazil was speaking about how important it is to have electronic election voting on an open source system, so that it can be checked for any rigging. He mentioned that if the last US elections had been run on open source software, then maybe we wouldn’t be having so many wars right now. The response was hilarious, even the uptight pollies who usually are so somber were chuckling to themselves.