India promoting piracy

*WARNING! I am in a foul mood. Dont read this post if you are looking for elegant words to add to your vocabulary. You might end up adding the wrong sort.*

Yeah, you didnt misread the title. An influential moronic imbecile organisation which calls itself "International Intellectual Property Alliance" aka "We are the biggest morons on the planet" which is an umbrella group of RIAA and MPAA has requested with the US Trade Representative to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil and India for its "Special 301 watchlist" because they use open source software.

And what exactly is the "Special 301 watchlist"? It's a report that examines the "adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights" around the planet - effectively the list of countries that the US government considers enemies of capitalism. It often gets wheeled out as a form of trading pressure - often around pharmaceuticals and counterfeited goods - to try and force governments to change their behaviours. In other words, this International Intellectual Property Alliance wants to force users in India, Brazil and Indonesia to shell out thousands of rupees (dollars etc.) to buy the insanely priced OSes. In other words, this organisation wants computer users in these countries to stay ignorant of anything 'computer' if they cannot afford to shell out loads of money to get a paid OS, when you can get perfectly awesome legally free OSes like Ubuntu. And gimme a break "enemies of capitalism"? WTF! I honestly didnt know educated people in the 21st century were this stupid.

Now if you arent familiar with open source OSes, let me give you an intro. Open source OSes are mostly free OSes which allow you to access to the source codes of programs which allows you to change its settings/features without having to ask for permission. Most probably you are already using open source softwares like Firefox, Thunderbird, VLC Media Player. Ubuntu is the most popular and most user friendly free open source OS. And most importantly you can use these OSes legally for free. Tagging open source users as pirates is the most outrageous statement of the century, as open source softwares and OSes comply with every regulation and patent laws that have been put in place.

Anyway, I think the Indian government should come out more openly and strongly in support of open source OSes and encourage its use. Open source OSes give users the right to access a computer and the internet even if they dont have the capability or more importantly the want to purchase a paid OS like Microsoft Windows and Mac OSX. In countries like Brazil, Indonesia and India where there's a large number of people living in poverty stricken conditions, open source OSes are the only way to make people familiar with computers. And some people with their vile motives like this organisation, see this as a threat to the business of their home grown OS giants like Windows.

I have no words to describe this shocking development. I hope better sense prevails.

(If you arent using an open source OS, I strongly suggest you do so now, as a protest against these stupid organisations. The best open source OS in my opinion is Ubuntu. You can download it (for free, legally of course) from here)

The italicised portions have been quoted from the Guardian UK Technology Blog