The Indonesian government has struck a deal with Microsoft whereby government computers running pirated software will be legalised at a dollar each, according to Information Minister Sofyan Djalil.

"Microsoft will certify the already-installed illegal software. But in the future, all government computers must have legal software produced by the company," he told the Jakarta Post.

The plan apparently evolved in a meeting between Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Microsoft founder Bill Gates in Redmond.

More than 50,000 PCs are in government use, the JPost said, and there are no records of which are running legal software -- so the deal might take some time to execute.

All computers running Windows would have to be certified under the plan, which is seen as a pragmatic first step toward encouraging an end to piracy in Indonesia.

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nice, i think you go move to that country

X_X Thats bad and good at the same time. Isn't it still illegal though? I mean, the software was stolen, and now its being sold. So isnt that illegal?

The Indonisean(sp?) government is paying $1 dollar to make the illegal copies legal in other words.

Hah... MS is desparate to hold its market share.

It's legalization of the existing MS OS is just a base to make sure that the people don't move to Open source systems following the MS anti-piracy crackdown.

Plus most of indonesian govt employees must be comfortable only with MS Windows so now they(MS) have kinda assured that their Windows Vista will make them bucks thru Indo Govt when they stop support of 98 and then at a later point of time XP.

Nice. I wonder If other people that do not have enough money to buy windows itself, can make a little sweet-talk with Mr. Bill Gates, and make arrangement with him to buyout pirated copy for 1$

Merely moving to Indonesia won't do anything, you need to be working for the Government there on a GOvt. - owned PC. :-)

A fairly obvious plot to hold on to the PCs before the governement there decides switching to an alternate OS would be a cheraper and better idea.

If the gov was willing to pirate windows to a point where M$ made this deal with them, I'm sure they weren't worried about whether or not software would cost them money hehe

I think it is a win-win deal. Microsoft gets some money(not that they need it) which they otherwise would not without this deal and the Indonesian government gets to legalise their software. Definitely a step forward in reducing the rate of piracy.

They get it for $1? and we have to pay over $100? if this story became well known I could imagine some very pissed off people would be more then happy to speak their mind....

I suppose they can't just say you can buy it for $1 if you pirate it.... alot of people would be doing it heh. But isn't pirating (based on VHS) technically the distribution in an attempt to gain money as opposed to plain using it....