[ILUG-BOM] [OT] Is your PC legal?

[Bhargav Bhatt]

On Wednesday 25 December 2002 06:24 pm, Nikhil Joshi wrote:

All my H/W is legal.

> 2. Do you have Mp3z on your Hard-Disk? Linux or Windows , they are
>    completely illegal 

	Making mp3s is not legal, per se. You can make million copies of any song 
and keep in on your hdd. As long as you dont distribute them to others free 
of cost. This technology is very useful to people who have old cds which 
are being worn out due to repeated use. The act of making mp3s becomes 
illegal when one makes mp3s out of copyrighted music files and then 
distributes them free of cost, or at a cost, but without explicit 
permission of the copyright owner.

> 3. Do you have DivX/MPEG files of latest movies ? It is illegal.

	The above reasoning applies just as well to DivX encoded movies. Lets say 
that I have bought a DVD of Kaante. Now imagine that I have a lot of small 
children playing around my house. I am scared that they might cause some 
physical damage to the DVD. Hence I use encoding software to store the 
movie as a 3 cd .avi file on my computer so that I have a backup. This act 
is completely legal. 
	Now imagine that I get greedy and decide to sell a set of 3cd avi's of 
Kaante to some people I know, for a paltry Rs 100. THAT, is illegal.
Read more here. 
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-272805.html?tag=rn

> 4. Does your homepage/HDD have gif's. Arguably they are illegal too.
>    (Some compression patent problems I believe)

GIF's have the same boolean status when it comes to legality. Nothing else 
Matters (not even the OS).

> Windows user is on equal moral grounds (regarding legality of his/her PC)
> if a Linux user satisfies any of the criteria.

	When we are comparing the owner (type A) of a PC system using a pirated 
compy of the latest Microsoft OS (purchased for free - just for the sake of 
argument) to a person (type B) who has the same hardware as A but is using 
a copy of Redhat 8.0 (or any other OS that is free as in beer), we have to 
keep in mind that there are far more people of type A than type B. The 
issues you talked about above apply to both, types A and B. In addition, 
there are many more grounds on which a type A person can be legally wrong, 
eg OS itself, Application software like MS office, photoshop etc. Sure 
windows users could use OpenOffice and gimp. But very few actually do. 
	If you dont understand the above, read on for an analysis of the current 
situation. 

<analysis>	
	Lets consider that applications A_w, B_w .... Z_w are the 26 most popular 
windows applications with a_w, b_w,...z_w users respectivey. Also let A_l, 
B_l .... Z_l be the 26 most popular linux applications with a_l, b_l,...z_l 
users respectively. Lets further assume, grossly incorrectly, a_w=a_l =a, 
b_w=b_l=b,.... z_w=z_l=z. Call this assumption D. 
	Now put a realistic estimate on the percentage of users who use illegally 
procured versions of A_w,B_w...Z_w. Call this percentage m. Do the same for 
A_l, B_l...Z_l. Call this percetage n. Now, I am sure that most people will 
agree that "m>n". Hence 
m * (a_w + b_w + ... + z_w) *100 > n ( a_l + b_l + ... z_l) *100.  ---> 
Equation 1
	Thus the number of users using illegal copies of Windows' based programs 
exceeds those using illegal copies of linux based programs. Now factor is 
assumtion D. If this assumption were not to hold then most people would 
agree that a_w>a_l .... z_w>z_l. Hence the Left Hand Side of Equation 1 is 
likely to increase in magnitude. Equation 1 is more likely to be
m * (a_w + b_w + ... + z_w) *100 > > > n ( a_l + b_l + ... z_l) *100
 Thus the number of legal windows users diminishes even further. 
</analysis>

The point of this analysis is that, when we talk about a "typical" windows' 
user, we cannot ignore the program "dependencies" that Windows brings 
alongwith it.  Hence, a majority of Windows users are legal offenders( or 
criminals) guilty of more crimes than their linux/(whatever) counterparts. 

> There cannot be something less illegal. Either it is legal or it is not.

Yes, there cannot be some"thing" less/more legal. But there can a person who 
has broken more/less laws than another, which is what we are talking about 
here.