T he Register UK noticed a little tidbit that we thought other Observers would enjoy. It seems that Microsoft was convicted of piracy in French Courts in 2001. The Register realized it after reading what amounts to a manifesto for Open Source software vs. proprietary software written by Peruvian congressman Edgar David Villanueva Nuñez. From the article:
Did you know Microsoft was convicted of software piracy last year by a French court? Not many people do. The Commercial Court of Nanterre fined Microsoft 3 million francs because it illegally included another companyis proprietary source code in SoftImage 3D, a top-of-the-line animation package.
The only authoritative report on the event was written by Lionel Berthomier and first published in the French paper, Le Monde Informatique. [...] And nobody else in the segment of the tech media thatis traditionally anti-Microsoft picked up the story, either -- not Slashdot, nor LinuxToday, nor NewsForge. Neither did any of the mainstream tech outlets. Nobody noticed this news. Nobody except Peruvian congressman Edgar David Villanueva Nuñez.
Heis the man who is being hailed by some as Free Softwareis version of St. Thomas Aquinas because of his "Summa Compulogica" reply to a recent letter sent by Microsoftis Peru general manager, Juan Alberto González. That letter was deemed necessary by Microsoft because of a Peruvian bill that if passed would require its government to buy and use only Free Software.
We encourage you to read the full article at The Register. Itis informative, and there is much more information than what we quoted.