So now their anti-pirating is starting to work they have to give the software away to ensure there is no competition.
I wonder what they mean by 'common humanity'

Well said, sir !

Even in Europe parents are fed up regularly having to install the latest incarnations of Microsoft applications at full price to match those offered "cheap" to schools. 

The school demands that every parent upgrades their home computers so that pupils' homework is compatible with the school's version. 

Any coincidence that this seems to have started after Gates was seen schmoozing with UK Prime Minister Blair.

"strong, local software economies"

MS' success from the days of DOS forward were in a mature economy with considerable disposable income, same with Borland and Wordperfect back in the day. The west had already got to where it was qua software & computers a water monopoly.

The second world is not and never will be in the same situation. The business situation that let MS do what it did will never exist in 2nd world, if only - leave aside the classical economics - because OSS occurred.

MS is blowing smoke up Indonesia's ass. The MS software centers will not *hurt* Indonesia but they will help MS only if it climbs into bed with the govt in quite a 1984 manner. When business and freelancers in Indonesia realize they can get more done with OSS than MS the gov't will have a real problem: how can it control information if the infosphere is outside it's control?

MS monopoly position in Indonesia serves only to (1) ensure MS profit - a losing position because Indonesia is not the USA economically; (2) ensure Indonesian gov't exclusive access to the Windows APIs/tech needed to control flow of data.

I do not think Gates is an evil man. I do wonder if he has thought through the political and humanitarian implications of sewing up an IT market like Indonesia with it's authoritarian political tradition?

700,000 Euros from the Europeans for Flossinclude is a joke. If they are serious about open source and supporting developing countries, then they should do a bit better. How about taking the latest 900,000,000 Euro fine against Microsoft and investing that into education and development projects in Africa, Asia and South America.

BTW, the web server of Flossinclude is currently down "due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems." Bad timing, I guess.

It might help more if they had schools...

http://www.atiu.info/cannibalism

Clearly, M$ will stop at nothing.



._. "meep!"