On Thu, 2004-02-19 at 20:18, Nandalal Gunaratne wrote: > Sri Lanka also has very lax laws relating to the use of software > and therefore has become a paradise for pirated software. One can > buy Windows XP and Office XP porfessional for less than US$ 2 and > use it! Under such a scenario OSS makes even less sense. Tighter > laws and regulations related to pirating (which affects local > software produces as well) are expected as this has been one of > the demands of Microsoft Corporation. Strangely such regulation > and punishment, may give the biggest boost to FOSS over here! > The cost of proprietary software even at half the price in > USA will be impossibel for majority of uses to afford.
Yes, it is one of the great ironies that it is the tighter policing of intellectual property laws which the IMF has insisted on in so many of the countries that it "helps" which, more than any other factor, is responsible for the surge in the popularity of open source software in two-thirds world countries (actually, more like four-fifths world countries). Factors such as better localisation and native language support, and nationalism (or more precisely, resentment and distrust of foreign intellectual and technological hegemonies) are also important but nevertheless much less influential than the rapidly escalating street prices of proprietary software in many countries, as a result of anti-piracy crack-downs and raids on local vendors by police. Of course, such crack-downs and raids are often specious, for the benefit of visiting IMF heavies, but increasingly they are the real thing (or maybe the local police have just discovered an excellent new racket for extracting money from street vendors and small stores...) -- Tim C PGP/GnuPG Key 1024D/EAF993D0 available from keyservers everywhere or at http://members.optushome.com.au/tchur/pubkey.asc Key fingerprint = 8C22 BF76 33BA B3B5 1D5B EB37 7891 46A9 EAF9 93D0
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