Microsoft suing Brazilian official

Microsoft suing Brazilian official

Here is a copy of my letter posted as feedback to Microsoft on:

http://register.microsoft.com/contactus30/feedback.asp

I recommend others protest to Microsoft directly on this one. Public notoriety will eventually cost any company valuable business.

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I am deeply offended by the attempt by your Brazilian subsidiary to stifle entirely reasonable and fair comment by a leading public official, Sergio Amadeu.

http://agenciacartamaior.uol.com.br/agencia.asp?id=1940&cd_editoria=004&coluna=reportagens

Considering that Bill Gates stated in Fortune Magazine, July 20th 1998:

"Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. 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." see http://www.p2pnet.net/issue04/issues.html .

This bullying tactic represents the kind of crass hypocrisy the general public in unfortunately increasingly associating with your companies reputation. The association of user addiction with the use and sale of closed-source proprietary software is hardly news - I have made this comparison myself to my students. This does not make your business model illegal, any more than it does that of proprietary drug companies who sell medicines with addictive side effects, assuming they do not falsify test results or attempt to suppress public discussion of these.

However, if a proprietary drug company were to attempt to bankrupt their critics with the kind of bullying we see here this would also push them onto the wrong side of the line as far as public opinion is concerned.

I expect and await your public apology, the withdrawal of this offensive lawsuit, and the sacking or demotion of the misguided manager responsible for this.