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02 Feb 2007
The President of Romania has told Microsoft chairman Bill Gates that computer piracy had helped his country to develop an IT industry.
Speaking at the opening of a new technical centre in Romania, Traian Băsescu told Gates that without piracy his country would not have an IT industry.
"Piracy helped the young generation to discover computers. It set off the development of the IT industry in Romania," he said.
"A bad thing became, in the end, an investment in friendship towards Microsoft and Bill Gates; an investment in educating the young generation in Romania which created the Romanians' friendship with the computer."
Gates made no reply. He was later presented with the Star of Romania by Basescu. The honour is traditionally awarded for outstanding bravery during wartime.
The most recent global study of piracy carried out by the British Software Alliance (BSA) found that 72 per cent of software in Romania is pirated, despite copyright laws being passed 10 years ago.
"Software piracy has many negative economic consequences, such as local software industries being crippled by competition with pirated software from abroad, and lost tax revenues and jobs from the lack of a legitimate market," said the BSA report.
"These costs reverberate up and down the supply and distribution chains."
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Do you agree?
Mircea, your argument is absurd
Using this argument you can justify stealing anything, based on the fact that you cannot afford it, and trying to placate your conscience by telling it that you'll buy it later when you have more money.
Posted by: Freddy 06 Feb 2007
I think it is bad policy from Microsoft
Guys, you know fully well that there are many people who don't afford a Vista, they don't have the money. They will simply turn to Linux, if their attempts to pirate Windows will fail. It is not their fault that they are poor. If you look at a shop which is not guarded by armed people, you might steal some fruits, now and tomorrow and after tomorrow, until you get accustomed to those fruits. After a while you get a higher salary and still want those fruits, but u choose to buy them, since you're fairing better. But if the original shop is heavily guarded, and men with guns guard the merchandise, u will turn to a cheaper shop or to one which offers fruits for free, you get accustomed to that other shop and when u get the higher pay u turn to the second shop for merchandise. The result (in the second case): the first shop will lose a customer. Microsoft has far too high prices for Vista, while not letting people any chance to "cheat" (even at their own risk, no chance, none). I guees Linux, which is free, will gain vast amounts of market share in the next years. Moreover, many people who use Windows will get accustomed to Linux (an important step), which could prove fatal to Windows. Wanna bet about that prediction regarding the market share?
Posted by: Mircea 05 Feb 2007
Kind of true
Pirating software is stealing, I believe the Romanian president knows this. I don't think he meant to encourage it. However, what he said is kind of true. During the '90s the Romanian average income was less than a 100$ per month. It was impossible to almost everyone to pay for any software. All Universities and High Schools were using mostly pirated software until around 2000 when Microsoft donated a lot of software to schools. I am a Romanian software developer and I learned to program on pirated software. I got a job due to that and now I can afford to pay for my software. The same is true for almost any developer out there that has studied anywhere else except EU, US, Canada or Japan, or at least it has been true at some point. It's true and irronic that piracy is one of the mechanisms that contributes to the development of software companies. Piracy level has been reduced in Romania but it's still a problem for countries like China, Russia or Brasil. This should make big software corporations think harder about their prices in poorer countries because a dollar invested or donated today it's going to be 10 dollars earned tomorrow. However, I wished that the Romanian president wouldn't have said that. Now all newspapers are twisting this to make it sound spectacular and a lot worse than it is. ~A bad thing became, in the end, an investment in friendship towards Microsoft and Bill Gates; an investment in educating the young generation in Romania which created the Romanians' friendship with the computer~
Posted by: Danu Moldoveanu 02 Feb 2007