So Linux = Communism, but...

[dann]

Next time you hear FUD complaining that Linux is Communism or anti-American (no cheering from those EU buggers) just remember, it was MS who broke US law and is selling their OS in Cuba:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gG4b ... QD90DORL81

How are they getting away with this?

[greggh]

How are they getting away with this?

The Cuban PCs have Intel Celeron processors with 80 gigabytes of memory and 512 RAM and are equipped with Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. Both could be violations of a U.S. trade embargo, but not something Washington can do anything about in the absence of diplomatic relations with Havana.

Clerks said the PCs were assembled by Cuban companies using parts imported from China.

A tower-style QTECH PC and monitor costs nearly US$780 (euro505). While few Cubans can afford that, dozens still gawked outside a tiny Havana electronics store, crowding every inch of its large glass windows and leaving finger and nose prints behind.

The gray and black QTECHs, complete with DVD players, bulky CRT monitors and standard-issue black mice and keyboards, are the only model available.

Yikes. That's a lot of dinero for such a crappy system.

[allix]

maybe they are getting copies from China ?

[dann]

Ok, so let's think about this. They are getting their computers from China, and Window from china. But, windows has wga so theoretically, knowing that when these computers call out, MS can shut them down. So why are they not doing this?

[allix]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Ge ... cumvention

Circumvention

In September 2005, Microsoft filed lawsuits against a number of companies that sold unauthorized copies of software to consumers. The cases are important because the leads came from customers who learned they had counterfeit software via the Windows Genuine Advantage program.[6]

On November 16, 2005, Microsoft released a standard Netscape WGA plug-in to complete the Windows validation process from Mozilla Firefox and other Gecko-based browsers (including Netscape) - although it does not use the Firefox extensions system, and thus is not supported by the latest version of the browser. This has garnered more criticism, since it still does not work in other NPAPI supported browsers such as Opera. Another workaround was released on December 25, 2005 to bypass WGA authentication by using a valid hash generated by a remote system. Microsoft responded with a cease and desist letter to the website host, and the workaround was taken down on January 6, 2006. Many people continue to validate on the Microsoft website from a public computer using a genuine copy of Windows, then write down the hash and continue to use it at home or work. As of July 2006, Microsoft has not devised a way to prevent this method of circumvention. On May 4, 2006 Microsoft announced lawsuits for allegedly distributing unauthorized copies of Windows against eDirectSoftware of Montana, and Chicago-area resellers Nathan Ballog and Easy Computers.[7]

On June 14, 2006 RemoveWGA was released which completely removes any trace of WGA from a system containing it.

Various workarounds to get past WGA authentication have been released on the Internet. Before Microsoft issued official instructions[8] on removing the WGA Notifier (a desktop application which resides in the system tray and periodically displays messages, reminding users to authenticate their operating system), users simply had to remove 2 files in order to get rid of the software from their system.

In September 2006, Microsoft dropped various required validations on programs such as ActiveSync.

Recently it has been found that it is possible to validate with WGA when running Linux (see below).

The last one is funny, Linux enables piracy

[Tsuroerusu]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Ge ... cumvention

Circumvention

... snip ...

Recently it has been found that it is possible to validate with WGA when running Linux (see below).

The last one is funny, Linux enables piracy

Exactly, that's why Lajnix is communism!!
/sarcasm