ITBusiness.ca: Piracy Stats Flawed: Open Source Proponent

[ Thanks to Russell McOrmond for this link. ]

"A Canadian open source advocate has questioned the credibility of an industry's group claim that reduced software piracy rates can improve the global economy.

"The Business Software Alliance (BSA) Wednesday released the results of an international study conducted by research firm IDC that examined the issues around software copyright infringement...

"Russell McOrmond, an Ottawa-based Internet technical consultant with Flora Community Consulting and a proponent of the Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) movement in Canada, dismissed the BSA's findings. He said the way CAAST and the BSA calculate piracy is fundamentally flawed because it relies on estimates of PC shipments by province, the amount of software required and then compares it against software shipment data from BSA member companies. Open source software isn't accounted for..."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• CNET News: Microsoft's Foreign Policy on Linux(Mar 10, 2003)
• GhanaWeb: Copyright Law May Aid Open Source in Ghana(Jan 28, 2003)
• The Guardian: World Wide Wealth(Dec 13, 2002)
• Salon.com: Profits from Piracy(Sep 27, 2002)