Random thought: Windows is largely successful because of Piracy

Windows as a software package would have never been affordable to individuals or local-level orgs in countries like India and Bangladesh (especially in the 2000’s) that are now powerhouses of IT. Same for many SE Asian, Eastern European, African and LatinoAmerican countries as well.

Had the OS been too difficult to pirate, educators and local institutions in these countries would have certainly shifted to Linux and the like. The fact that Windows could be pirated easily is the main factor that led to its ubiquity and allowed it to become a household name. Its rapid popularity in the '00s and early ‘10s cemented its status as the PC operating system. It is probably the same for Microsoft Office as well (it is still a part of many schools’ standard curricula).

The fact that Windows still remains pirateable to this day is perhaps intentional on Microsoft’s part.

SimonSaysStuff,

Microsoft has openly encouraged piracy as far back as the 90s. I remember an interview with Gates where he said as much.

This has been part of Microsoft’s business model, especially for Windows and Office for 30 years. They actively encouraged pirating the software to ensure it cemented itself as the defacto standard in homes and offices with a view that one day users would have no choice but pay for it. For over 20 years now this has been part of the bigger desktop-as-a-service goal.

Soon businesses and home users will have no choice but to remotely log into a Windows system that is hosted in a datacentre and provided by Microsoft or one of their partners. Local installs will be a thing of the past. Think Citrix Presentation Server and thin clients which is where this whole idea started a long time ago.

Cannacheques,

Nah that’s just for high security government systems, if you run a small business or something you might not want to fuck around with thin clients unless you’re working directly with big databases and stuff

0x2d, (edited )

microsoft owns github

microsoft owns windows

mas is used to pirate windows

mas is hosted on github

hmmmm…

uriel238,
@uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

…and they knew it from the beginning.

Even the MPAA and RIAA know piracy fuels culture and makes golden hits into platinum hits and boost sequel album sales and auxiliary items (toys and lunchboxes).

They can’t help themselves because to the execs and shareholders, it feels like lost sales and theft. And the DRM market capitalizes on those feelings.

soothing,

I think this is really true. In 2000s people used to pirate everything (at least where I am from). And even now, apple marketshare is never big compared to US for example.

SereneHurricane,

1111111111111.

Just saying.

Antitoxic9087, (edited )

I think it is the other way around; easy pirate versions appeared becuz windows was popular, providing access to those who can’t afford.

Polar,

Or Windows just works on so much different hardware. You can build a PC with the weirdest mix and match of hardware, and Windows will just… work. Also I bought a Microsoft sidewinder wheel from 1998 from a thrift store for $8, plugged it into my Windows 10 PC, and it just worked. Nothing special was needed. 1998 hardware literally plug and play on Windows 10 (and I’ve tested it on 11, and it works the same).

You can install MacOS on non-Apple hardware, but you need to buy very specific hardware, and download very specific hacks, to make it work.

Even Linux only works on specific hardware. This entire thread has people talking about how broken Linux is on their setups. The suggestions are to buy specific hardware and run very specific versions of Linux.

Astaroth,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft

Ignoring unauthorized copying

… Bill Gates said “And as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”

The practice allowed Microsoft to gain some dominance over the Chinese market and only then taking measures against unauthorized copies. In 2008, by means of the Windows update mechanism, a verification program called “Windows Genuine Advantage” (WGA) was downloaded and installed. When WGA detects that the copy of Windows is not genuine, it periodically turns the user’s screen black. This behavior angered users and generated complaints in China with a lawyer stating that “Microsoft uses its monopoly to bundle its updates with the validation programs and forces its users to verify the genuineness of their software”.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_documents

… the documents identified open-source software, and in particular the Linux operating system, as a major threat to Microsoft’s domination of the software industry, and suggested tactics Microsoft could use to disrupt the progress of open-source software.

FARTYSHARTBLAST,
@FARTYSHARTBLAST@sh.itjust.works avatar

Pirate Linux!

Wait…

Morgikan,
@Morgikan@lemm.ee avatar

Windows being easy to pirate wasnt the reason for it’s popularity. It had market share because they allowed for it to be preinstalled on machines for virtually nothing. They allowed it to be preinstalled on machines for virtually nothing because the OS wasn’t the flagship product.

MS Office has always been the major flagship product for the company. This was true in 1994 and still is today. Office is so important to their revenue streams that it’s fairly common knowledge and has been mentioned by former employees that OS development would focus on compatibility with Office programs, not the other way around.

Specifically if you look at the years around Office XP and 2003, that suite is used very much as a CVS. They deprecate their operating systems using Office.

Moonrise2473,

For private individuals and small institutions, yes, they would definitely use linux if windows was 100% impossible to pirate.

For corporations and bigger institutions, no, they would 100% continue to use windows just because of the control they can have on their devices, group policies, single sign on, and so on. It’s possible to do that on Linux, but not as easily. They’re already paying 15 dollars / month to microsoft just for AAD/entra/[whatever they call it this week] or even more to have office integrated with that and $200 for a permanent license for a single PC is a drop in the bucket

lemmyvore,

group policies, single sign on, and so on. It’s possible to do that on Linux, but not as easily.

It is just as easy, if you have a sysadmin who knows what they’re doing. Which is the case for Microsoft too, you need someone knowledgeable for the implementation and management anyway.

This is where Windows being “free” and everywhere comes in, everybody buys Microsoft without a second thought.

SkyeStarfall,

Linux is designed to be able to do group policies like that very well

Remember, Linux originates back from the terminal days, and the vast majority of servers run Linux. If any OS is made to function well in large organizations, it’s Linux. Windows is popular on desktop for reasons other than better group policies.

Excrubulent,
@Excrubulent@slrpnk.net avatar

When I was working IT in a place that produced transcripts - so we had loads of typists all using Windows and MS Word loaded down with a thousand macros - the IT department made all of the servers linux based, and all our production was stored on samba shares. The only reason they hadn’t transitioned the entire workforce to linux was resistance from management.

I imagine there would’ve been resistance from users too, but all of the inertia was due to familiarity and had absolutely nothing to do with technical barriers. The entire IT team was frothing at the mouth to be free of Microsoft’s arbitrary BS. Windows caused us no end of headaches.

In fact, because every typist needed a browser open at all times to research legal terms and other details, I had a number of people complain their computer was running slowly. For every one of them, I installed firefox and made it the default browser and told them they’d need to login to all of their online accounts again. Every single one told me I’d “fixed the computer” and it “works so much better now”.

SchizoDenji, (edited )

Not really. Offices were one of the major early adopters of computers and windows is perfect for them with plethora of features they offered right out of the package.

Windows GUI was groundbreaking, their text processing and excel was a game changer, and windows doesn’t allow you to delete your own boot partition with a sudo command so it was pretty idiot proof.

Once windows had the majority of marketshare, it was pretty obvious that whoever was buying PCs (back in the day it was more that a dad got a PC from his office or bought one which was similar), got it with windows.

nakal,
@nakal@kbin.social avatar

From a private end user point of view yes. But in enterprises Windows and Office is successful. Lots of money is going to Microsoft here.

people_are_cute,
@people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Windows and Office were successful in enterprises precisely because they were popular and the familiar choice among staff. They got popular from piracy.

Moonrise2473,

it’s a bit disingenuous to think that corporations are using windows just because employees are familiar with that. Unless the work is only using a web browser, you need programs and stuff, you don’t simply switch to Linux. Especially when “familiar with windows” for an average employee it just means “know where the icons are, and open Facebook in a browser”.

A corporation would surely love to save $100k if they could just have a windows skin on Linux and force employees to watch a 1-hour video on training to use the new system. But then if they need to run [PROGRAM X]? and if they need to run [PROGRAM Y]? And what if some quirk of running [PROGRAM Z] on Wine introduces some bug that causes slowdowns and monetary loss?

They intentionally choose windows, and they will pay whatever Microsoft tells them because:

  1. they can have support from less specialized (=cheaper) techs
  2. they can control everything of their computers from a centralized position. If they want, they can force push the goatse image as the wallpaper on each single employee and nobody could change that.
  3. it works well with the programs they use, and they are in a configuration that can be supported by techs
PostingInPublic,

I think your third point is key, one thing Microsoft does very well is backwards compatibility. We run programs from the 90s in production. It is a nightmare of APIs layered upon APIs, but the programs will run.

puppy,

Unless the work is only using a web browser, you need programs and stuff,

My employer is a sizeable tech firm that uses the Microsoft suite. The irony is that developers use WSL because the software they need are on Linux. We haven’t switched to Linux just because the IT department doesn’t know shit about managing a Linux fleet of devices. They haven’t bothered to get the training/certificates because Windows is the status quo for big corps. This will stay this way until the next gen of sys admins form the majority, I guess.

Omega_Haxors,

One of the zillion reasons why piracy is morally correct and the exact reason I will never pirate. (use open source instead)

IWantToFuckSpez,

Same with Photoshop, Maya etc. These corps know that letting consumers pirate their software will create more legit end users. Since people will get used to their software and won’t easily switch when they enter the professional workforce where these corps don’t condone piracy and actually audit businesses. At least in Western nations they even audit small businesses. Like my friend used to work at a small engineering firm in the Netherlands and Autodesk came by to audit the CAD licenses.

people_are_cute,
@people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

How do those companies audit businesses that they don’t know are using their software? Do they have a special force built just to track creative releases from indie makers?

Moonrise2473,

at work we once bought licenses from Autodesk and one day, when we realized that we didn’t need it anymore and we could use a better alternative, they sent us a letter where they assumed that we stopped paying because we started to pirate. They basically threatened us to allow to run some malware on our computers to check compliance, or someone could tip us off to local authorities. They even tried to bribe the person who read the letter by ending the letter with something like “in case of piracy, the whistleblower could be rewarded financially”. It was a regular mail, so we just ignored it.

lemmyvore,

That’s very common with Microsoft products too. Their vendors get to use @microsoft.com emails (distinguishable by an extra “v”) so they frequently pose as “auditors” to pressure businesses into buying licenses.

It’s a grey area because a business with all licenses in order would not care either way, but software being what it is it’s hard to stay compliant all the time even if you try, and that’s when the vultures descend.

For example say you appoint a new CTO and they realize your company of 200 PCs uses pirate Office copies, so they buy 200 genuine licenses, but they’re cut short of actually installing the matching Office version because Office is a piece of malware-acting crap and is actually very hard to completely purge from a domain install. So they end up holding correct licenses but using technically pirated versions. This is where a genuine audit would not care (you paid for the newer version and are using the older, crappier version; due to their fault, I might add? you do you Microsoft got paid) — but an unscrupulous vendor would try to scare you into paying more to “fix it”.

IntrepidIceIgloo,

That’s the genius of proprietary software business models, also adobe is guilty of this, let people pirate your software so they dominate using your software. Once their skills are built on it once they get to the workforce they won’t even question using a libre alternative. In the end they manage to dominate the market

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