I’m not sure how accurate StatCounter is, given that most Linux users use adblockers. However, according to it, Linux has almost a 14% desktop share in India.

        •  d3Xt3r   ( @d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz ) 
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          You’re not breaking the law, you’re breaking a software license agreement. That does not automatically make it a crime, at least, that would depend on your exact local laws, and the lawyer’s interpretation of it - in many cases the actual wording around this is ambiguous and could be argued both ways. A better term for it would be a “legal grey area”, which means if you’re a company then don’t f*** around with it, and if you’re just a random user then no one gives a f***.

          In any case, if those scripts were truly illegal, then the Microsoft-owned Github wouldn’t host them in the first place. Clearly Microsoft themselves don’t have an issue with it, so why should anyone else care about it?

          • only legal options are

            You could also just download the ISO from MS directly and use it without activation. It’ll only prevent you from changing the theme and wallpaper, but you could just change the registry entries directly or use a third-party tool to change your wallpaper/theme.

            • And no BitLocker (without fiddling around even more)? No, thanks.

              There’s no way Microsoft can win this moral battle, they’ll profit off you enough with all their tracking, have you seen the atrocious setup screen at installation they put you through?

              • Do you want to ads?
              • Do you want to a keylogger?
              • Do you want to get tracked?
              • Do you want to get fucked?

              Yes, please, daddy GatesNadella

              (Sorry, can’t help myself from sounding like a nutjob when Microsoft gets into the equation)

          • It’s of questionable legality. It’s not illegal as in “piracy”, but the seller, or whoever obtained that key from Microsoft, is violating their agreement with Microsoft by reselling the keys.

          • You really need to learn to read properly. What I’m saying is that being poor on its own does not incline people to commit crime. You read it as “People commit piracy if and only if they are poor”, which is the only statement under which your reply and its implications would be logically sound.

            Is being poor correlated with piracy? Yes. But I argue the much bigger factors are the lack of availability of legitimate methods of acquiring software in India as well as the difficulty of acquiring such legitimate copies, even when they are available. There are also cultural differences that make piracy more acceptable in India than in other places, such as Europe or North America.

            Think of it like this: a hypothetical 13-year-old child in the United States who wants a video game and sees it on Steam for 60 USD may consider piracy, but is much more likely to save up for it and buy it legitimately when they get a Steam gift card for their birthday or ask their parents for it for Christmas. Their parents can easily go to Walmart or Amazon and buy a copy. Meanwhile, a child in India who sees the same game for sale for the equivalent of 5,000 INR will know that is firstly a ludicrous amount to save for, and secondly, may not be available in their region, and thirdly, lacks the ability to simply ask for it for their birthday or something. Gift cards don’t seem to be too common in India. A person living in India is also less likely to have access to banking infrastructure that allows for easy electronic payment. Even things bought on Amazon have “cash upon delivery” available as a payment method. That is how undeveloped India’s payment infrastructure is. Meanwhile in the USA, every teenager has their own bank account and debit card. As a result, the Indian teenager is more likely to pirate. But it is not solely because they are poorer.

            •  loki   ( @loki@lemmy.ml ) 
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              It’s not that deep.

              • Kid wants a video game thats paid

              • Kid searches the game piracy website and finds it.

              • Kid downloads and plays the pirated game

              Every kid does this and you know it. People don’t consider downloading things off of internet as some sort of a moral test or a criminal action. And software piracy is just in paper in some countries.

              • It’s not that shallow. You are trying to use an anecdote, and not even a concrete anecdote, to argue a matter of statistics. The anecdote isn’t even illustrative of any point. It is utterly disconnected from any statistical argument. It is not logically sound and you should know that. We’re talking about how many people pirate things, not whether any given person pirates something. What you have argued in your comment is, “there exists a set of circumstances where a person could reasonably be driven to commit piracy”. That is neither persuasive to your thesis nor particularly enlightening.

                I really wish rhetoric was taught as a standard subject in grade school. It must not be where you’re from.

        • I absolutely agree that Linux is great and I genuinely hate Windows for number of reasons. The problem is that some people just have to use Windows. This might include me in a few days, because I’m in high school and we have to install Solidworks. I think that for these people, Windows Activation Scripts are a good option that is safe (like it’s not a virus), is free (because I don’t want to pay for OS that I’m forced to use for some reason) and is safe in the meaning that there is no way of legal consequences if you are an individual, AFAIK. Also the licenses from 3rd party websites are often stolen licenses and buying them is IMO worse than activating Windows using the scripts, since you are supporting scammers.

      •  nous   ( @nous@programming.dev ) 
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        301 year ago

        While it is free to download it, the license still costs. Though they seem to let you use it unlicensed for an unlimited amount of time with some restrictions (like not being able to change the background image and an ever present watermark). At least this was true for windows 10. No telling if/when they will drop that feature though, especially if loads of people start using it unlicensed like that (though I doubt that has any effect on people using it that way or not).

      • Was, but no longer is. It is officially discontinued, making the ₹500 note the largest for now. I would expect the Government to quickly launch a new large-denomination note. India is still a largely cash society and the largest note being worth 6 USD is surely going to be inconvenient for everyday citizens.

  • It’s a little puzzling to me that Linux isn’t popular in low-income countries. Why wouldn’t it be the OS of choice there? Do we need to become linux missionaries? I imagine it would be easier to convince people who can’t buy an iPhone to use FLOSS than those who can drive to an Apple Store and waddle over to get yet another one.

    • They know little about open source. Microsoft is exclusively in schools and government, and that is what they grow up with. They probably know more about pirating Windows, than using Linux legally. There is also a good kick-back in terms of MS license mark-ups for middle-men businesses. One would hope there is some mandatory education around different OSs as I’m sure kids would love to explore and modify software.

        • Linux and FLOSS unfortunately don’t have budgets, and rely on logic and common sense. Microsoft has a big lobbying budget, gets in to see senior politicians and decision-makers, and then sponsors training, digital villages, etc. Yes, it costs a country overall much more than Linux, but it is easier for schools/gov depts and middle-men make some actual money in their pockets. That’s what Linux and FLOSS end up against. What would turn it around is having strong local businesses driving training and making tender bids to install and support Linux and FLOSS. A government or school wants to have it done for them. That’s the reality, unfortunately.

    • Two reasons, low income means no culture of paying for software, and easily corrupted government and administrations which companies like Microsoft have no problem taking advantage of to push their products to city halls, schools, hospitals, universities etc.

    • I don’t think many people buy windows, laptops already comes with it and ones how can build a pc already know how to get windows for free, as far as iPhone goes, why would any one choose floss if they can’t afford iPhone? They usually choose Google services

    • They don’t choose. Choice is something to make when people have enough time and resource. Instead they use what they are familiar with and have little time to grab and learn a new thing.
      Free software comes with an implicit cost while pirated Windows doesn’t, ironically.

      • I would assume that “market share” is related to the relative number of units sold/number of active subscriptions/fraction of total sales in terms in revenue, or some similar metric. I run a variety of different distributions on servers (bare metal, VMs and containers) and desktop computers. Do they all count equally? Without giving it more thought, I wouldn’t even know how to determine the market share of Ubuntu in my own home in a sensible way.

        With Windows, I can just count the number of active licenses. Oh wait, its zero.