It is said that in 1976 Bill Gates wrote some sort of anti-piracy manifesto, because back then 'information wants to be free' was still a serious motto. However, nobody else in the world has perhaps as profited from piracy as Bill Gates himself. 'Warez distros' of Windows or Office are everywhere, but distributions of Solaris or WordPerfect are not. I'm not saying Microsoft actively pushes forward piracy to help them win a market-share, but piracy was perhaps their biggest help in building a Monopoly. It's fairly simple: If everyone has a pirate copy of Windows at home, then their employers (which have stricter laws over them) will have to buy Windows since there won't be so many experts on Unix or other operating systems. At least in Europe and Asia, most computers sold are store-assembled bulk models. Since PCs exist, shops would install DOS and later Windows free of charge. This is plain piracy and a damn good help if you are building a monopoly on your products. It's much better to have an army of people who can only use Windows than to sell every single copy. Now, under the pressure of the local authorities, many computer sellers are installing Linux instead. Of course people who buy such coputers will eventually get a friend to install Windows, because its monopoly consists of people's heads, rather their hard-drives. Does anyone really believe Microsoft sold Windows copies to 97% of the world's computers?¶