Just the other day I conducted a survey among my friends about the genuine status of their Operating System. And the result of the survey was:

• Genuine Windows 9%
• Pirated Windows 89%
• Linux/Mac 1%

This did not come a surprise to me as I live in India, here pirated software rules thanks to high prices of software as compared to the salaries of individuals. Here pirated software like Adobe Photoshop, MS Office, and Windows XP or Vista which actually cost over $150.00 are available for about $1.50. People as such prefer purchasing the latter and saving large sum which they have had to shell out otherwise. CDs of such software are sold like fishes in a fish market.

This does not bother me. For me piracy is a phenomenon by which the corporates are unable to earn extra pocket-money by the end of the month. But what surprises me is Microsoft’s attitude towards the piracy of its software.

Microsoft in the recent years have been attacked for their tactics for genuine software. People think they are over-committing against piracy. But I feel they are genuinely mistaken. In fact they are under-committing. Microsoft clearly are secretly encouraging piracy.

Why do I say this? Well, there have been so significant effort to control piracy. Microsoft at any time could include a certain piece or hardware (perhaps a USB device or a PCI Card) which consists of confirmation of the “genuineness” of the system and without the presence of such hardware, Windows will not boot which would surely prevent piracy of its next Windows version at the latest. But have Microsoft acted?

Microsoft know where their strengths lie. In putting the majority under the technological dependence on them, Microsoft are playing on the fact that if the absolute majority is dependent on their technology then they can engulf huge profits through corporate and technical endorsements. In this process they can reassure them they have the army of potential consumers who would otherwise have gone to the opposite end to the world of Linux and Open Source.

In economic perspective it makes no difference to Microsoft whether users use open source software or their use pirated software. But through the latter what they achieve is technological dependence. As a result people move towards its software which is also “free”, and therefore the majority becomes depended on them.

This achieves two aims: Firstly since the majority depend on their software, the new users do not have to choose it them – it is forced upon them like preloaded PC’s with Windows. Moreover as a result they achieve wide spread support system from million user. Secondly this reduces potential users of open source software like Linux which is radically different from Windows which further prevents more support systems and widespread acceptability from potential users and as such people desist change.

The bug of piracy not only slowing down the the open source movement but is also increasing widespread dependence on closed software.

My aim through this article is not to criticise Microsoft but for open-source users to realise that its not the superiority of Microsoft products which give them the widespread acceptance but the technological dependence of majority of the users especially in developing countries