<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body >Much simpler: giving away Windows would be see as unreasonable behaviour in the market, pushing the software that runs on it etc.<div>It's not a viable strategy, politically.</div><br><br>-------- Original message --------<br>From: Daniel Jitnah <djitnah@greenwareit.com.au> <br>Date:24/11/2013 17:37 (GMT+10:00) <br>To: linux-aus@lists.linux.org.au <br>Subject: Re: [Linux-aus] [luv-talk] Should I feel sorry for Queenslanders?! <br><br><br>> P.S. It still amazes me that Microsoft charges for Windows. I <br>> mean, why not just give it away for free?<br><br>Very simple reason! ... They **CAN** charge for it and there are<br>enough people out there who are not opposed to paying and as long as<br>there will be people who will pay, why would they not make more bucks<br>from that?! ... ie higher dividend to share holders.<br><br>Remember what the MS Rep said to the Senate Inquiry into software<br>pricing: "They set prices according to what the market will pay".. or<br>something to that effect.<br><br>There are people who feel that its degrading to use free software,<br>because they regard this as attitude of misers! and that to them is<br>socially not appealing. This is what I tell them "OK how about you<br>use free software and for every dollar that you would have spent on<br>purchasing MS software, you give the same amount to a charity of your<br>choice instead or towards a cause you really feel strongly about? You<br>would be contributing to more good to the community in doing so, and<br>you be happier!".<br><br>Note that forced to do so, MS almost did it when the were giving away<br>XP practically for free to netbook vendors makers when the first<br>netbooks came out wih Linux.<br><br>It's the perfect lock in to using the Microsoft<br>> Store, Microsoft Office, Microsoft whatever and all the programs <br>> that rely on it.<br><br>They already have the lock-in, does not have to be a "perfect" one!<br><br>Cheers<br>Daniel<br><br>It must cost them a non-trivial sum to run the licensing programme.<br>> And if they gave it away for free, one of the chief advantages of <br>> FOSS (free as in beer) is gone. It might reduce the price of <br>> computers too, but mostly that's a non-issue IMO. I can only <br>> assume it's a combination of pride and blind faith in the <br>> proprietary software religion that keeps them insulting people by <br>> charging money for it.<br>> <br>> _______________________________________________ linux-aus mailing <br>> list linux-aus@lists.linux.org.au <br>> http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo/linux-aus<br>> <br><br>_______________________________________________<br>linux-aus mailing list<br>linux-aus@lists.linux.org.au<br>http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo/linux-aus<br></body>