Romania proudly proclaims they 'built (their) country on pirated Windows'

Recently, Romanian president Traian Basescu met with Bill Gates. He then proceeded to tell him how his country's IT business would be nothing if it weren't for pirated Windows software. He claimed that Romania's pirated Windows really helped the younger generation get into computers, which in turn accelerated IT development. Pirated copies of Windows also helped encourage creativity with computers. Basescu claimed that if it weren't for this piracy 10 years ago, he and Bill Gates wouldn't be the good friends they are now. Bill Gates got rather quiet, as he certainly doesn't like supporting piracy of his own software. Romania introduced anti-piracy legislation 10 years ago, but there are very few arrests being made considering that an estimated 70% of the country's software is pirated.