Will Microsoft's Strong Anti-Piracy Stand Drive People to Linux? by George Lunt Windows and Piracy Microsoft is due to release its new Vista operating system either toward the end of this year or at the beginning of next year. Will this new operating system be as successful as Microsoft's other offerings?
Interesting discussion here because of some of the points that people have raised regarding piracy as an alternative form of advertising/promotion esp. in countries that are quite poor. The theory is that getting people hooked on M$ will be good for their own business as people increasingly turn to legal copies…
It's certainly an interesting argument, though M$ has to talk tough to prevent everyone doing that, I suspect that they do somewhat condone this. Linux could really dent their long term 'dependency' relationship, as could open source software in general. Once you're hooked on, say, OpenOffice… why would you ever pay for M$Office?
Kenneth