Software Piracy - The pirates of the software

This was one of my very first writings. It was in the year 2000. You can see a copy of the original manuscript.

Stopping software piracy is just imposing a ban on a boon. It is just like pouring cold water on a burning fire and let it smoke. Pirating a SW is one of the best things one can imagine. It is obviously one of the best talents one can develop. Pirating a SW is no child's play. It takes to rattle ones brain and spend much time to do it.
So! Are pirates(SW hackers and crackers) greater than the SW developers. One cannot give a correct answer to this question and the ideas differ from person to person. Unknowingly we owe much more thanks to those people who made the softwares available to the common man. A commonly used operating system (Windows) or Microsoft Office would cost 3 to 4 months salary of an average Indian and some high end softwares like Auto Cad would cost a whole years salary. Will one go and purchase these softwares and live with these highly branded genuine softwares and go on with nothing else. One needs to be foolish to buy a SW when he can get it for free. If there was no SW piracy and one had to buy the SW, shedding even the last pence left in the pocket, none except the exceedingly rich and the ones who made the SW would use it. Nor would you and me have to do anything with these computers.

Nations like India, who are campaigning against the SW piracy should not forget that, all the Indians who brought fame to this country as a great software nation. Even the budding SW talents can dream of standing on the top of the rest of nations. Never forget that all this name and fame to our nation became possible only because of piracy. If this piracy was not present the present situation would be really different. Computers would be confined to corporates and with in the doors of the rich. The SW developing companies are callous and do nothing to improve the life of a common man but just go on making more and more money(Don't forget Bill Gates). But pirates on the other hand think nothing but how to help a common man and make him to enjoy the softwares. With out them probably you wouldn't read this(think twice). Before the release of the Windows XP, it was said that it cannot be pirated as the earlier versions of the windows were as it had such features against piracy. People wondered whether if they could ever lay their hands on that much hyped version. It was a talk among the people. But soon after the release of Windows XP that talk subsided abruptly and soon that XP was on every ones dream machine.
How all this happened? All the thanks and credit goes to the one and only Pirates. No one forgets the man behind the windows, Mr. Bill Gates when the windows logo appears or use Office, but none remembers the ones who made all that happen to them, the pirates who also did much hard work to bring that to you.
So when u see the wonderful desktop of your computer, or use the tools of MS Office, just say a word of thanks to the great people behind it who gave it away all for free and much more are yet to come from them. Or you are free to use the funny Red hat Penguin(LINUX) which comes for free. It is free, only because it is made by many people around the world who wanted every ones ideas to be incorporated and implemented. As the proverb says 'too many cooks spoil the broth', the Linux is a spoiled one and even smells stinky. Remember genuinely free things have these special qualities.
Linux is gaining popularity only because it can run on low system resources. Have you ever dreamt of using any other OS than windows. How can you ever forget the very commonly used MS Office that conquered the hearts and computers of many.