$799: MSDN AA Original — 1 Year
$499: MSDN AA Electronic Fulfillment — 1 Year
$2,397: MSDN AA Original — 3 Year
$1,497: MSDN AA Electronic Fulfillment — 3 year


there you go, your school pays one of those packages and you have free windows, office and visual studio for each student that is doing a computer certification (this includes office certification). The fault you could not get windows when you are student is not with microsoft, but with your school/university

There is also OOPS, where the student gets windows, office and some other stuff on their own name for 150 euro a year if they don't do a computer certification.

It is not microsoft's fault schools require typed reports, it's up to the school to provide the infrastructure if they do. Saying you needed to pirate software for such reasons is not justifying anything.

(i obviously quoted in agreement, the you is generally used)

Hmm...gotta jump in here this one hits home.

Windows XP

When you buy it on a box, or install it new from the factory plastic, you had to register it or within X days, it would decide not to work.

Enter Thailand.

Opps...microsoft did not give us a registry server...and sold the entire nation broken comps! So, we broke their OS, and now everyone gets Windows XP for about 50cents american, or, 20 Thailand Baht.

Doesn't pay to mess with us, maybe next time microsoft will consider hooking us up like they promised?

Love,mimi

Does that include tech support and free upgrades?



I do agree with this though. I could have gotten through my CompSci degree, I'm pretty sure, without touching Visual Studio, and that's the only one of those that I can't think of a free alternative for off the top of my head. You can get Linux and OO.o free of charge, which is plenty for most schooling, especially outside of tech degrees.

What type of nonsense is that?

You think just because a war is going on means they suddenly don't have money for other things they really want to do? Hillary and Clinton were talking about giving everyone healthcare but its not so simple. This was before any wars were going on. The war isn't even part of the official budget.

The healthcare issues are completely seperate ones. I just found out I have a life time illness and I'm supposed to get a new insurance in a month. I know how bad thats going to be, but I also can spend enough time to figure out exactly how to get what I need, and I know to get a PPO and stay away from any HMO because of how bad mass medical practices are.

There was a report today of how surprised people are that there isn't enough Corn to go around the world because half of it was spent on making ethenol... Why were they surprised is what I want to know. I think too many people have no clue about how the real world works.

If nobody ever bought Microsoft software, Microsoft would go way of the dinosaurs. That would be a Good Thing, and so, I don't give two bits about that happening. However, that's not going to happen - I am arguing that, on a smaller scale, people are justified in making an illegal copy of software that they quite simply cannot afford to purchase, at least not without making financial sacrifices that are plainly ridiculous given what it's being bought. The price of a copy of WinXP means a month of food for a family of four in a lot of places, and even if they can afford a computer, that pricing is quite plainly ridiculous. I don't see any real harm in people making copies of MS software for their own use, and even if there was, I find it that there is less harm in denting MIcrosoft's bottom line than in forcing those people to pay such bizarre prices for what is essentially, software that does nothing at all. Oh, and I kinow you think I'm an immoral prick, but that's okay - I think you're basically illiterate and living in a fantasy world.

Because I disagree with something, morality and ethics must be breaking down.

I've met people who pirate software. In fact, I've met people who pirate software for a living. They are wholly unlike any real criminal - They're decent people. Many of them have families, some are devout Catholics. Of course, lots of family people with a religion are hipocritical, but they're definitely not people who didn't get a moral education.

Oh please. RMS does not condone piracy; he condones making software that is free to distribute by nature. Not in taking copies of software illegally, but in making software that can be copied legally by anyone. You are hugely, immensely, bizarrely ignorant on the whole subject. And yes, RMS has image issues, but so what? Doesn't mean he's wrong. In fact, the fact that a long-haired hippy type with the habit of eating his own hair managed to convince so many people is probably a sign that he's obnoxiously right.

People are entitled to education. I'd rather poor people didn't buy televisions at all and got the daily newspaper and books instead, or a computer with internet access, but ise of technology is quite plainly a necessity nowadays. The notion that you can have a decent standard of living in modern society without knowing how to operate a computer is ridiculously outdated.

Microsoft is too big, but that's okay. The problem is what Microsoft does with that power. There's no compelling reason to buy from IBM except for the inherent qualities of their products (Whatever they are, been a while since I bought anything from them, especially now that they spinned off Lenovo). There's no compelling reason to use Google, except that their search is better. There are many compelling reasons to buy from Microsoft, but they're all consequences of the Microsoft monoculture. The thing about Linux is, you can't stick it to the man against Linux. There's no 'man' to stick it against.

They're evil. A petty, stupid type of evil, but evil all the same. Sure they're not as bad as the RIAA, but they do a lot of distrubuted harm. Perhaps the most evil thing about them is that Microsoft survives not because they make good products, not because they are the only provider of such products, but because a monopoly was handed to them on a silver platter 20 years ago.

Here's food for thought.

The industry I hear complaining the -most- about piracy is the music industy. So why have they posted record profts these past few years?

Because they're arseholes who are about as interested in 'protecting the artists' as they're interested in protecting filesharing networks. Most of the executives and lawyers working at recording companies and the RIAA make more money than the average recording artist. They're more interested in the survival of their business model and in continuing to assert their control over people than in protecting their 'sacred' intellectual 'property'. Just look at DRM schemes, the whole Sony rootkit debacle, the DMCA and people being sued for more money than actually exists, then settling for more money than they have.

What people who have been eating the propaganda of media companies for years fail to understand is that intellectual property is not real property. Property is a very, very old social construct or even a natural instinct of humans (Animals seem to display similar behaviours about owning objects and land). Intellectual property isn't - For most of the history of humanity, nobody bothered to 'protect' ideas because you can't steal them. I can't go into your head and steal your thoughts. I can only copy them, but when I copy your ideas, I become richer without making you poorer. Ideas are a fundamentalily different brand of property, and in fact, copyright began as an exclusive right granted to publishers of books to protect them. These rights were expanded to other types of media, which is all well and good, but now we have intellectual property advocates pretending it's a natural right - It's not. It's a legal construct, and it should only exist so far as it benefits society, not a natural right inherent to human beings that should be defended under the same terms as the right to actual, tangible property or the right to life.

Just wanted to pick out my favorite bit, there. It's also the most important bit.

free upgrades during that year (else you'd be really screwed with the beta software wouldn't you )

The person responsible for it in your school gets 4 help tickets, everyone in the school gets access to a special website with forums and a newsgroup where you can get help from eachother (this is also linked to the normal msdn news group which exists out of coders)

I never said he condoned piracy, but his personal viewpoint ignores the monetary needs of creative people. Things like GPL3 are meant as idealogical warfare. He demands software be free and wants to force that on all creative types. Like I said, more like Karl Marx. He honestly said at one point he thought music should be free and open because it brought people happiness and it's a "fundamental right", screw the people who produce and perform or sing it.



You are wrong on this subject. Microsoft gained by making good products, period. Office succeeded because of various mistakes in the marketplace by the competition. Ashton-Tate lost the #1 database because they ignored the third party market. MicroPro lost WordStar because they made a lot of foolish decisions (two competing products, redeveloping the print architecture). IBM could have taken OS/2 against Microsoft but they made so many foolish decisions too numerous to mention here. (IBM was once in the Microsoft position) You're not looking far back to the past. Microsoft wasn't hated until they got too big.

And if Linux became number 1, people would hate it too. They'd either direct their hate at people like Linus, RMS, or others involved with such products. People like the underdog. If Apple ever took over as the number 1 microcomputer, people would start hating Steve Jobs.



Somehow I doubt Bill Gates is going to be considered a vile, evil man. I reserve the use of the word "Evil" for people who break fundamental laws, y'know, like murder, rape, theft.

Indeed, and not those who give unprecedented amounts to charity.

Just as a post script, there's a little essay that is used as the intro to the book "In Search of Stupidity" that's available on the web to read.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Stupidity.html

ISOS also criticizes such things as DRM and the RIAA and Microsoft's monopolistic practices, so it's not just "pro MS" or anything, but this book goes into the past. Some of the younger people on this forum probably have no memory of computer before Windows was around (a scary thought), so this is a good read to see what top dogs were around and how they royally f-ed up.

Just to give you a clear figure on how much Windows OS costs here in the Philippines, its roughly 65-55,000.00 pesos - just for the operating system. Average employee in the Philippines get paid for 10-12,000 pesos a month. This clearly supports Verithrax's facts about how ridiculus those OSs are.

And to tell you the truth, the goverment offices use pirated copies of Microsoft. I know because most of my relatives work in goverment offices. I researched this when I was trying find a problem for my thesis. Kinda depressing huh? Its own goverment cant even buy an original copy for their offices. I think its much worse in other countries.

How do you suppose a normal family would buy that for their kids who are studying in high school?

I do not justify piracy, but things like these are just too impractical for most people to buy, hence they resolve to piracy.

@Verithrax you know, I should have talked to you when I was in college. I could have aced my Editorial Design class. *le sigh*



One of my term papers in college dealt with a foreign investor trying to claim an intellectual proterty right in creating a perfume made out of a local flower (Sampaguita). They are trying to stop the locals from using Sampaguita extract as perfume because they said they were the one who have legal claims over it. How up is that?

Can you produce a link of what he actually said? Also, RMS's opinions don't reflect those of the whole Free/Open Source software community. Not to mention that RMS is definitely not anti-commercial and that the FSF has supported commercial enterprises. The notion that Free Software is at odds with programmers making money out of their jobs is, well, at odds with reality.

Microsoft's products are horrifyingly bad. They're buggy, bloated, primitive pieces of crap that on numerous occasions took years to catch up with any serious competition. Office is probably their only piece of software that can stand on its own, but everything else is crap. Windows grew out of their DOS monopoly which was basically handed to them by IBM (DOS was always a grotesquely bad OS, and Windows wasn't half-decent until its 3.0 version, at which point it started to bloat out of control, alternating between versions that were very bad and versions that were good by Microsoft standards). Internet Explorer was an insanely bad browser for its first six versions, but it was used simply because it came bundled with the OS. I personally have used FOSS applications, and I've used Microsoft applications, and every time I try to use Windows for anything serious, a part of my brain dies. The notion that Microsoft's products are good is ridiculous - Even people who use their products routinely complain about their low quality crap.

Apple can be just as monopolistic and unpleasant as Microsoft - Except, they're not at all bad at this whole 'computer' thing. But yes, hating big organizations is natural to human beings, which is a good thing. People should instinctively feel wary about monopolies. If an organization manages to accumulate that kind of power, it should be either hated, or so sickeningly benevolent it's impossible to hate it. But what people hate isn't so much bigness in itself, but rather concentration of power, and free software is the ultimate dispersal of power. If people hate Linux, they can compete with it much more easily (Because a Linux hegemony would be based on open formats and open standards that are easy to interoperate with) or just fork it. You can't do that with Windows.

I wish people would be capable of dissociating Microsoft from Gates. Bill Gates is a person, and he's done what's best for his company and for himself, which is, generally speaking, alright. But Microsoft is a corporation that has had a very negative impact on the world with its practices. If you hurt people unjustifiably, that makes you evil. People are very justified in hating and disliking Microsoft because Microsoft has screwed people over on numerous occasions.

For comparison purposes, how much does a computer cost?

Here, a copy of Windows home costs RS$ 470 - A low-end PC can cost as little as RS$ 700, but that price is slightly skewered upwards because it's impossible to find price quotes on computers without Windows pre-installed that aren't high-end boxes, servers, or Apple computers.

The government here has moved to open source. Only smart thing this administration has ever done.


Heh, I'm just an amateur.

Slightly less up than what pharmaceutical companies charge for their 'precious IP' when selling AIDS medication in Africa...

Bloatware is a myth.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html

NT beat Novell, if you ever bother to get that book. It was based on part tech innovation, part marketing, part solid business strategy. If you ever seriously study software engineering and all the complexities involved in creating an OS, you'll see how Microsoft ended up beating out people.

This "bloated, buggy" speak is crap. Unless you are developing software for NASA or medical devices, the process for quality control will be primitive.



That's cause they are number one. If Linux had 70% share of the market, they'd have people complaining when the software doesn't work, or when you have to go through a complex installation process.



Hey, a while back you're are the one who said "Die Gates Die".

Linux isn't perfect, but it's far superior to Windows, and I've gone through a lot of crap using it. Firefox on Linux starts up only marginally slower than IE, which is ridiculous - IE is preloaded, so it starts near-instantly. Linux doesn't deceive users by putting a lot of its start up time after login (MS Windows systems are usually unusable for five seconds, at least, after you log on). OpenOffice is lighter than MS office, even though it runs on a virtual machine. Vista reportedly takes up three gigabytes of disk space - bare. My current installation of Ubuntu, with two different desktop environments and a huge complement of applications and development tools manages to fill up that disk space; bare Linux fits in a floppy, Linux with all the functionality Windows has out of the box fits in a CD, uncompressed. Windows has always been notorious for pushing higher hardware requirements, while recent Linux distributions will run perfectly fine on ten-years-old hardware when mildly stripped down and fitted with a light WM and a lighter browser than Firefox. Microsoft's software is bloated, plain and simple.

Jokingly. It's not like I'm going to parachute down on his mansion and murder him, even if he makes a nice convenient anthropomorphisation for Microsoft's brain-deadness.

iTunes... you know the program where you pay $1 per song.

Which is, you know, more or less the same you pay for music on a CD, and unlike most CDs, it's horribly DRM'd. I don't mind iTunes' type of DRM since it's not overly restrictive and it lets you burn an unrestricted CD, but I prefer buying CDs myself just because I like having a nice jewel box, album art, and so on.