[klinux]

well regarding the first para : and does any organisation respect u for the decision u made and praise u for it ??? anyone going to call u a team player now ??? u as an individual still feel bad thinking abt it right ??? u got rights too u know , that u can protect . heck , if people went abt worrying abt society and making their life decisions , based on what society wants or what society feels is good , idea of individual wouldnt exists . u arent a drone in a hive , rather citizen in a democracy . it might sound corny , but its ironic that people would talk and do so much for freedom of software , where as the real place where freedom should be maintained and fought for , LIFE , we just tend to give up . what makes u think that fighting for what was rightfully urs makes u a bad person and other companies wouldnt take u in ??? . is corporate india that dishonest or criminally inclined that no one does any honest work . we ridicule ppl in the US for suing over silly things , apart from things that are important , but we seem to let go of our rights too easily . rnt there any cyber / IT forensic labs in india which could have probably traced the files . or even a simple security program . ??? anyways i think we usually let go of these things and the next guy who finds himself in the same predicament , will probably do the same , koz no one ever stood up in the first place . its sad , but thats the situation .



well regarding the second para : smaller corporates are a target of firms like MS and others . we had a case of radiant tech in chennai , being charged with piracy a few years back . there werent that big , in fact i think they were just into teaching new tech . But this thread specifically targets individual users , which in any case wont make a big diff to the corps anyway . other companies which profited from piracy might have to pay heavy fines and they probably will be able too . but what abt the individual ? u really think MS is gonna target individuals ? if that was the case , they would have done it long back . when they themselves are not so forceful on people , i cant understand y the guy who started this wants people to confess a supposed crime in his view .

regarding 3rd para : what abt the remaining developers and companies , the ones which giants crush out and steal s/w from and dont pay off , koz giants can afford good lawyers ??? if ur bought out fine , if ur kicked , beaten and screwed outta ur business , because giants can hire sharks , thats bad right ??? i think even real media sued ms for windows media player . already we have trouble brewing between MS and Symantec koz of MS acquiring anti virus softwares . isnt this tactic of MS hurting other software players ? Free s/w like firefox might have an advantage , but paid s/w like norton will eventually suffer and lose business koz of MS .

regarding the Office 2003 issue : couldnt MS give away a cheaper version of the office utility without the fancy addons or the extended features , built for corporates ??? even MS knows their products are too pricey for asian countries , thats y they give discounts on it . giant firms will always try to get max outta their product , especially if they are in a monopoly . Normally boycotting the product itself would bring the price down (as we have seen in the past with isps ) , but here in asia , s/w sharing is a means by which they actually have the same effect . So what we know now is MS can actually give out their bloated s/w + support for a lower price .