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Romania "built our country on pirated Windows"
Basescu met Gates at the opening of a global technical centre in Bucharest.
According to Reuters, Basescu said, during a joint news conference with Gates, that piracy helped the younger generation discover computers. It set off the development of the IT industry in Romania.
It also helped Romanians improve their creative capacity in the IT industry, which has become famous around the world. He claimed that all this piracy "ten years ago" was an investment in Romania's friendship with Microsoft and with Bill Gates.
Gates didn't say a dickey bird as we suspect it was not the sort of thing that he wanted to hear. We would have thought that Gates would not have supported any piracy in any country even if it helped the nation get where it was today.
Romania introduced anti-piracy legislation 10 years ago but only tends to make arrests when it has to make a point to the EU, or a pirate forgets to pay his bribe money to the local constabulary.
It has been estimated that 70 per cent of software used in Romania is pirated. Pirates will even call at your office to flog pirated CDs and DVDs.
More here. µ
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Interesting article. It's true that most of the software here in Romania is pirated, but i wouldn't say that "Pirates will even call at your office to flog pirated CDs and DVDs".
And yes, the president was right, the IT industry in Romania emerged from pirated copies of Windows (+ Office, Macromedia (Adobe), etc.).
It's not so bad after all, as people get used with the software they work with day by day and will eventually buy it in the end. Software companies will get their money back in the long term.