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Microsoft Caught Copying Software Code In China...
from the piracy? dept
Lots of folks have been submitting the story of Microsoft's China operations being caught with its fingers in the cookie jar in directly copying the code from a small company called Plurk. This isn't just the look and feel that was copied, but it appears that some of the code itself was directly copied. Of course, this seems doubly amusing, since Microsoft has, in the past, been at the forefront of complaining about "piracy" in China -- even as the details have long suggested Microsoft benefited greatly from unauthorized copying of its software in China, by building tremendous lock-in and making Microsoft the defacto standard. Of course, when a Microsoft exec recently announced that "piracy" was no longer a threat who knew he meant because Microsoft had decided to go in the other direction and use it to its own advantage?
Of course, I'm joking there. Microsoft continues to insist that piracy is a huge problem, and over in India, Dan alerts us that Microsoft has actually been fined for harassing "pirates" by trying to take them to court in the national capitol, instead of where the "piracy" actually happened:
Of course, I'm joking there. Microsoft continues to insist that piracy is a huge problem, and over in India, Dan alerts us that Microsoft has actually been fined for harassing "pirates" by trying to take them to court in the national capitol, instead of where the "piracy" actually happened:
According to the Court, Microsoft is needlessly abusing its unlimited cash flow as a power tool to financially hurt the defendants, who will have to travel all across the country in order to defend themselves. This abuse of "money power" to "harass" defendants is unacceptable according to the Court.So, it's fine to try to bankrupt "pirates" as you're pirating software yourself? Of course, Microsoft will squirm out of this one just fine. It'll claim it was a mistake, probably throw some money at Plurk (who just got a ton of free PR) and move on, still claiming that "piracy" is bad, bad, bad and must be stopped (especially in China).
"When the constitution of India provides equality before law, this equality has to be all pervasive and cannot be allowed to be diluted because of money power or lobbying power," Judge Dhingra commented on the case.
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tsk tsk tsk
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Vendor
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/15/microsoft-gives-final-answer-on-plurk-disaster-it- wasnt-us/
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jeeze
It's a bit of copied code in a country and culture where copying is a way of life, especially business life, and almost certainly no more than a handful of employees was aware of it. Hold Microsoft to a fair standard as the act and react to this revelation, but blame the employees and the culture for the act.
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Re: jeeze
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Re: jeeze
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Re:
"Unlike Microsoft, who stole BSD code and then used it in Windows NT's TCP/IP stack"
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1222045.html
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So, yes, MS has used BSD code in it's tcp/ip stack, and followed the license completely. Even in my Windows 7 64bit ftp.exe, I find
Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of
California.n All rights reserved.nx00
which satisfies the BSD attribution clause.
There are enough real reasons to chastise MS, spreading lies about something they did right just shows intellectual laziness.
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theft of copyrights
people work and infringe. one such studio is sony.
I notice there are a lot of sony lawsuits for infringement.
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Abuse
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Punishment.
:)
By the way, why is that courts still don't use video conferencing?
That way a lawsuit could be filled anywhere and people should just go to the nearest court of law. Sure the government can afford broadband no?
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Microsoft borough a lot
and there are many other instances but I wouldn't worry about that.
Actually open source is great counter to software monopolies.
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it is unusual for me to defend MS
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Who could have seen that they've been, in fact, complaining about *their very own* piracy!
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