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Date:      Thu, 29 Nov 2001 20:46:38 +0100
From:      "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@freebie.atkielski.com>
To:        "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com>, "Andrew C. Hornback" <achornback@worldnet.att.net>, "Mike Meyer" <mwm@mired.org>
Cc:        <questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?)
Message-ID:  <02ac01c1790e$96f842c0$0a00000a@atkielski.com>
References:  <000301c178cb$d105d880$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>

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Ted writes:

> Your arguing from a United States viewpoint in
> a world forum, and you don't understand it.

Why would I argue from a "United States" viewpoint?

> Overseas, though, things are much different.  In
> many countries there is no real history of Windows
> usage, and do you know why that is?  It's because the
> dominant commercial desktop OS for years and years
> was OS/2!

The commercial desktop OS today is Windows in Europe.  Most of the rest of the
world doesn't matter, anyway, since it has yet to discover running water.  I
don't know what leads in the handful of other countries outside the U.S. with
healthy infrastructures, such as Japan or Australia.

> Also, there's lots of countries where Windows
> has not been localized to that country.

And FreeBSD has?

> It's simple - overseas they are used to paying a
> lot more for Microsoft products than we are and
> I daresay that the total amount of piracy of Windows
> overseas (discounting Asia where piracy is an
> institution) in businesses is far less than here in
> the US.

The actual figures are just the opposite.  The U.S. has one of the lowest piracy
rates in the world.  Piracy is a major problem even in Europe, especially in
Southern Europe, where petty dishonesty is a cultural institution.  Italy is one
of the worst offenders (in Western Europe--in Eastern Europe everything is
stolen), as I recall.

> Just look at the financial reports for any large
> domestic software vendor who has overseas sales
> broken out and you will see this.

About 80% of Microsoft's sales come from outside the U.S.

> In summary, your arguing from a classic "tech"
> position where you simply don't take any of the
> financial/business/political issues into account ...

I've seen the figures.  Your assertions concerning piracy and overseas revenue
are the opposite of reality.




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