Iran has become the latest country to edge towards ditching Windows in favour of Linux, even if its refusal to abide by copyright laws means that the country does not pay a penny to Bill Gates.

According to Mohammad Sephery-Rad, the man in charge of the government's computer systems, long-term political and security considerations have sparked a major initiative to make the switch.

"All the software in Iran is copied. There is no copyright law, so everybody uses Microsoft software freely," said the secretary of Iran's High Informatics Council.

"But we cannot continue like this much longer," he said.

The reason has nothing to do with the guilt of using pirated software (a cracked Windows XP CD costs the same as a blank CD), but more pragmatic considerations - not least because of the irony that Iran's information technology (IT) backbone is based on software from its arch-enemy the United States.