I’m not sure how accurate StatCounter is, given that most Linux users use adblockers. However, according to it, Linux has almost a 14% desktop share in India.
I’m not sure how accurate StatCounter is, given that most Linux users use adblockers. However, according to it, Linux has almost a 14% desktop share in India.
Windows Activation Scripts are free 😉
…but not legal. Being poor doesn’t necessarily mean you’re inclined to break the law. Besides, Linux is useful if you perhaps want to later get a job in the tech field.
You’re not breaking the law, you’re breaking a software license agreement. That does not automatically make it a crime, at least, that would depend on your exact local laws, and the lawyer’s interpretation of it - in many cases the actual wording around this is ambiguous and could be argued both ways. A better term for it would be a “legal grey area”, which means if you’re a company then don’t f*** around with it, and if you’re just a random user then no one gives a f***.
In any case, if those scripts were truly illegal, then the Microsoft-owned Github wouldn’t host them in the first place. Clearly Microsoft themselves don’t have an issue with it, so why should anyone else care about it?
Yes, you are breaking a law. Copyright infringement in this manner is an offence under the Copyright Act 1957 punishable with up to three years imprisonment and a fine.
But you’re not infringing on any copyright. You’re downloading a copy of Windows directly from Microsoft legally, and then activating it using a free and open-source script hosted on Microsoft’s own servers. You aren’t breaking any copyright law in doing that.
That’s how it should work, but creating a derivative of a copyrighted work, through modification, even if it is for personal use, is technically illegal in the US.
Copyright doesn’t even apply until you attempt to distribute the covered work, so no, this is false.
In my country there is no copyright act of 1957.
That’s not relevant. We’re talking about why Indian people are using Linux in greater numbers so only Indian law really matters in the context of this discussion.
I think copyright and ownership law only broken in France tho? I never seen many country that has no that kind of law? Well if you ask implementation… It’s different things. 😂
Well, your thought is wrong. Copyright infringement is an offence in India. It’s also an offence in the United States, where I live. It is also an offence in Indonesia (seeing you’re using an Indonesian instance), punishable by three years imprisonment and a 500 million rupiah fine. But maybe it’s not enforced well there so you didn’t know about it
I know there are law about it. But the implementation is different. That’s why I said the implementation not the law. So the enforcement is broken.
Last time I know business software alliance taking someone to court is when Ballmer still a CEO.
resold oem key is not legal as well.
only legal options are: get windows with your device or purchase retail for a hunnit $.
just accept it and pirate.
You could also just download the ISO from MS directly and use it without activation. It’ll only prevent you from changing the theme and wallpaper, but you could just change the registry entries directly or use a third-party tool to change your wallpaper/theme.
And no BitLocker (without fiddling around even more)? No, thanks.
There’s no way Microsoft can win this moral battle, they’ll profit off you enough with all their tracking, have you seen the atrocious setup screen at installation they put you through?
Yes, please, daddy
GatesNadella(Sorry, can’t help myself from sounding like a nutjob when Microsoft gets into the equation)
Not sure what you’re getting at here. I’m a Linux user FYI, I’m just disagreeing with the OP’s comment that there are only two legal options.
That’s fair, just disregard my comment then
Oem keys are absolutely legal in the EU
It’s of questionable legality. It’s not illegal as in “piracy”, but the seller, or whoever obtained that key from Microsoft, is violating their agreement with Microsoft by reselling the keys.
I absolutely agree that Linux is great and I genuinely hate Windows for number of reasons. The problem is that some people just have to use Windows. This might include me in a few days, because I’m in high school and we have to install Solidworks. I think that for these people, Windows Activation Scripts are a good option that is safe (like it’s not a virus), is free (because I don’t want to pay for OS that I’m forced to use for some reason) and is safe in the meaning that there is no way of legal consequences if you are an individual, AFAIK. Also the licenses from 3rd party websites are often stolen licenses and buying them is IMO worse than activating Windows using the scripts, since you are supporting scammers.
Really? Piracy should not be very popular there then. oh wait…
https://www.revenera.com/blog/software-monetization/software-piracy-stat-watch/
https://dataprot.net/statistics/piracy-statistics/
You really need to learn to read properly. What I’m saying is that being poor on its own does not incline people to commit crime. You read it as “People commit piracy if and only if they are poor”, which is the only statement under which your reply and its implications would be logically sound.
Is being poor correlated with piracy? Yes. But I argue the much bigger factors are the lack of availability of legitimate methods of acquiring software in India as well as the difficulty of acquiring such legitimate copies, even when they are available. There are also cultural differences that make piracy more acceptable in India than in other places, such as Europe or North America.
Think of it like this: a hypothetical 13-year-old child in the United States who wants a video game and sees it on Steam for 60 USD may consider piracy, but is much more likely to save up for it and buy it legitimately when they get a Steam gift card for their birthday or ask their parents for it for Christmas. Their parents can easily go to Walmart or Amazon and buy a copy. Meanwhile, a child in India who sees the same game for sale for the equivalent of 5,000 INR will know that is firstly a ludicrous amount to save for, and secondly, may not be available in their region, and thirdly, lacks the ability to simply ask for it for their birthday or something. Gift cards don’t seem to be too common in India. A person living in India is also less likely to have access to banking infrastructure that allows for easy electronic payment. Even things bought on Amazon have “cash upon delivery” available as a payment method. That is how undeveloped India’s payment infrastructure is. Meanwhile in the USA, every teenager has their own bank account and debit card. As a result, the Indian teenager is more likely to pirate. But it is not solely because they are poorer.
It’s not that deep.
Kid wants a video game thats paid
Kid searches the game piracy website and finds it.
Kid downloads and plays the pirated game
Every kid does this and you know it. People don’t consider downloading things off of internet as some sort of a moral test or a criminal action. And software piracy is just in paper in some countries.
It’s not that shallow. You are trying to use an anecdote, and not even a concrete anecdote, to argue a matter of statistics. The anecdote isn’t even illustrative of any point. It is utterly disconnected from any statistical argument. It is not logically sound and you should know that. We’re talking about how many people pirate things, not whether any given person pirates something. What you have argued in your comment is, “there exists a set of circumstances where a person could reasonably be driven to commit piracy”. That is neither persuasive to your thesis nor particularly enlightening.
I really wish rhetoric was taught as a standard subject in grade school. It must not be where you’re from.
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why go through the trouble when linux is free?
Sadly, some people have to use Windows.
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Is this real and safe? Why is Microsoft letting it be hosted on their own platform?
I looked at the code but the “single file version” is 10377 lines of Batch. They want me to do the power shell equivalent of
curl abc.com | bash. The official website looks legit but I have no idea if this is safe or how they’re doing it.I dunno if that particular one is safe or not, but running a webpage as a script is asking for it.
Could be swapped to something else at any moment, and what you see if you browse to it may not be what is returned if you use the command line…
Downloading the script and checking if it’s the same script as the one on github is definitely better. Or running the curl but on raw.githubusercontent.com adress, because then you can be pretty sure it’s not something else than you see.
These are the most well-known activation scripts that many people trust. They are well documented and often recommended, with more than one contributor. Written in powershell, I believe that if they were malicious, some of the 46k people who starred the repo or 4.8k people who forked it would notice. That being said, you can only be sure if you read the code, which is luckily not that difficult in the powershell script case. I personally trust them, definitely more than I trust Microsoft itself :D