Comments on: Gates: Open source a great ad for Windows

Microsoft chair says it's great to have "a few design wins" by Linux and such in the news--it shows how much simpler Windows is.

Gates: Open source a great ad for Windows

I find Bill Gates comments regarding piracy somewhat ludicrous.

HOW do you pirate an OPEN SOURCE program that is FREE for the asking and the time to download???

Just curious....

MJR

[Jeff Putz]

Not what he said...

If you read carefully, he said there were more copies of pirated Windows out there than any open-source OS. He didn't say the open-source stuff was pirated.

[shynes]

Gates knows better...

It isn't great responding in the company of people who really miss the point, but...It is obvious that there are more "pirates" than desktop Linux users. But every pirate is a cloaked open source user, and many do not "pirate" software because they don't want to pay for it - many simply don't want to pay Microsoft. They will be the early adopters of the first integrated Linux desktops, which are not yet here, but there are promising points of interest. None of this will make much difference for a few years, but the Microsoft OS and desktop app hegemony is not a good long term bet.

Steve Hynes