To this day, Microsoft
encourages piracy of its products. The more users the merrier. Why? The only reason you'd want piracy is lock-in. Lock-in grows the user base and is achieved by none other than proprietary formats. If I can't see the code, then I'm helpless to myself and to others, and soon, a victim of things like WGA and hyper-expensive upgrades. There is no real name for the philosophy of "because we can." That's part of the reason for the success of the biggest software companies, Adobe, Microsoft, Autocad, heck, even SAS. Its very vagueness makes it hard to attack. In actuality, it is not a single entity. It is made up of three main parts.
(1)
Corporatism, which is based on the belief that whatever makes money is good — and should never be restrained;
(2)
Autocracy, which is the belief in unlimited monopoly. Around the globe, many nations do not bow to Microsoft like we do, nor do they want Microsoft's software. But that doesn't stop Microsoft from wanting its software on every computer, even if they sell Vista for $800 in Denmark and $3 to developing nations;
(3)
Open Source/FOSS people are dangerous idiots. And between lobbying, lawsuits, and self-sustaining relationship between helping large corporations make huge profits in return for campaign contributions and support for DMCA, DRM, Patent law, and other policies designed to suffocate and frustrate competitors play a role in the — for lack of a kinder term —
Fuck-the-user business strategy (because they can). Open Source software is
the biggest threat, period, because it levels the playing field for interoperability and competition. (God forbid we have either of those!)
