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Good to see that your tax dollars are going to help a multi-million dollar company to help it boost its profitability -- while "garage inventors" are dissed by the deputy PM and Finance Minister.

And who said that National and Act were the parties of big-business?

But enough of such depressing things (honest).

The other "big" story of the day has to be Microsoft's intention to try to reduce levels of piracy affecting its sales by denying updates to those who can't prove the authenticity of their Windows installations.

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Yep, it would seem that if you've got a pirated copy of Windows then you may soon find that you're no longer able to obtain or install essential security updates and enhancements.

Is this a good or a bad thing?

Well, as we all know, Bill's products are hardly icons of security and (believe it or not) there are still some computers out there which are running software infected with the Code Red worm -- to say nothing of the repeated waves of attacks associated with newer vulnerabilities.

By making security fixes available to all Windows users (legit or otherwise), Microsoft was able to reduce the impact of its software flaws -- but if they deny such fixes to those with pirated copies the results could be catastrophic for everyone.

If, as MS would have us believe, there are a massive number of pirated copies of its software in use, the next major worm that exploits a new vulnerability might well have the potential to bring the Net to its knees if a fix isn't available to everyone.

In fact, odds are that hackers and the anti-Microsoft brigade know this full-well and will be working their little bottoms off in an attempt to highlight the fact by way of some crafty piece of malware.

What will those with pirated copies of Windows do once they're no longer able to keep their systems secure (I'm using Microsoft's definition of "secure" here)?

Microsoft seems to think they'll rush out and buy a legit copy but I have my doubts.

If Bill isn't careful, he'll simply be driving a significant proportion of those using pirated copies to dump Windows altogether and switch to Linux.

A goodly number of the rest will probably just put up with the version they've got -- flaws and all -- to the cost of everyone who uses the Net.

Maybe MS ought to wake up to the fact that quite a few of those who are using their software illegally really don't represent lost sales because odds are that they'd never have bought it anyway.

With Firefox giving IE the elbow and this new policy set to make MS very unpopular in many areas, I think Bill needs to look very closely at what he's trying to achieve and whether he's taking the right path to do so.

And for the record -- no, I don't have any unlicensed MS software, in fact I have a couple of spare copies of genuine Windows sitting here that I'm not even using -- but I'll be pee'd off if another worm starts clogging up the Net due to flaws in MS Windows that some users won't be able to patch.

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