Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 23:14:33 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com>, "P. U. (Uli) Kruppa" <root@pukruppa.de> Cc: "Andrew C. Hornback" <achornback@worldnet.att.net>, "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?) Message-ID: <000701c1796e$a9402000$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <030301c17943$c4f47790$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: Anthony Atkielski [mailto:anthony@freebie.atkielski.com] >Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 6:07 PM >To: P. U. (Uli) Kruppa >Cc: Ted Mittelstaedt; Andrew C. Hornback; Mike Meyer; >questions@FreeBSD.ORG >Subject: Re: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?) > > >Yes. See above. These are BSA/SIIA figures for 1999. Not that I really wish to get into a discussion on piracy but there's more to the story than these figures. Do you know what the BSA is Anthony? Well perhaps you need a little history lesson. The BSA was created years ago, but until just a few years ago it was nothing more than a spot on the wall. Instead, there was an organization called the Software Publishers Association (SPA) that Microsoft and all the rest of the major ISV's were members of. Well things were hunky-dory until the Microsoft anti-trust case. At that time the SPA came out in favor of it, as the majority of ISV's (who were members of SPA) were and still are for a Microsoft breakup. This pissed off Microsoft so much they first tried a ham-handed attempt to push their COO Bob Herbold onto the SPA board. This was rejected by the group, and Microsoft eventually said "screw you" and left. Needing a venue to continue their anti-piracy work they ran across the BSA and in a twinking they had pumped it up and gotten some of their friends (like Symantec) to join in too. After that the SPA renamed itself the SIIA. Well today the BSA knows perfectly well that the power behind their throne is Microsoft. And Microsoft has a funny way of measuring piracy - they simpy count all the PC sales in a region, count all the Windows software sales in that same region, and the difference to them is the percentage of piracy. In short, they assume that every PC that is manufactured is running Windows. Those figures you spouted come from a group that is a puppet of Microsoft. If you think they are so good then where is the methodology published as to how they are gathered? Well you won't find it because it's so awful that they _have_ to hide it. None of the BSA's figures are verifyable in any way shape or form. Now, I don't particularly feel that the SIIA is any better than the BSA, their assertion that 30% of software bought over the Internet is pirated is rediculous and unsupportable too. But at least SIIA uses 3rd party data measurement firms that are slightly less-biased, although they are equally unverifyable. Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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