TedPage: Open Source and the BSA

I've never really understood why Open Source advocates get angry at the BSA. They seem to me to be the people who encourage more people to use Open Source than anyone else. Anyone who's been through a BSA audit, wants nothing to do with proprietary software again.

I've always held the belief that software pirates stop a significant portion of the population from adopting Open Source, they have no idea how much software costs. Today I read a blog entry from fERDI entitled: Zen and the Art of Inkscape. You can imagine why I found the article interesting. While I enjoyed the Inkscape ego-stroking, I especially found this section interesting:

Is hope fading? Not really. Not if Microsoft continues their raids. When software copy control policy is successfully enforced (which by the way the Warnet raids look likely to be sooner rather than later), then most computer users in Indonesia would have no choice than to go open source. Nobody can afford commercial software here.

It quickly sums up my thoughts. While I don't want to see people in the developing world hurt, putting them on a path to sustainability would almost definitely help them in the long run. Go BSA!