09 February 2007
A Russian principal is currently on trial and could face 5 years in prison for purchasing computers which turned out to have a pirated version of Windows. The result of this has been Mikhail Gorbachev personally writing a letter to Microsoft asking them to drop charges. This was refused by Microsoft who said it that they "were sure the Russian courts would make a fair decision."
The fair decision that has been made was to arrest the software purchase who more than likely had no certified version of Windows as an option to purchase and was fully confident that he was purchasing a legal version.
In a small ray of hope, Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked that investigators search for the distributors rather than users of pirated software.
In order to escape from the threat of being arrested for piracy many schools in the region and throughout Russia are now considering Linux. Microsoft's decision to stay out of the issue has resulted in the possible loss of an entire country's school computers. It has as well caused waves to further dirty the reputation of Microsoft to give people an impression that Microsoft cares nothing about people and helping (something the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was setup to do), but only about making a profit with their software. When purchasing your next system you may want to consider this and remember that there are other choices.
John Pallatto has also responded to this incident with his opinion.
The fair decision that has been made was to arrest the software purchase who more than likely had no certified version of Windows as an option to purchase and was fully confident that he was purchasing a legal version.
In a small ray of hope, Russian President Vladimir Putin has asked that investigators search for the distributors rather than users of pirated software.
In order to escape from the threat of being arrested for piracy many schools in the region and throughout Russia are now considering Linux. Microsoft's decision to stay out of the issue has resulted in the possible loss of an entire country's school computers. It has as well caused waves to further dirty the reputation of Microsoft to give people an impression that Microsoft cares nothing about people and helping (something the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was setup to do), but only about making a profit with their software. When purchasing your next system you may want to consider this and remember that there are other choices.
John Pallatto has also responded to this incident with his opinion.
Labels: linux, microsoft, os, windows
