On the other side of the coin ... /soapbox on I'm a software developer. I used to have a vertical app that I was trying to sell. It was a small marketplace and people copying my package would have made it very hard on me. I spent considerable time and effort combating people's efforts to use my package without paying for it. Another developer I know went out of business because every time he sold one copy, ten other people in the area would suddenly have his program. And this was for churches! Copying commercial software is stealing! Just because it can be easily copied, doesn't give everybody (or anybody) the right to do so. While you may not think it is "taking anything away" from them, it is depriving them of the income they should get for your usage of their product. If you want free software, stay with the FOSS packages. If you want to use commercial software, pay for it. That said, have I ever used a commercial package without purchasing it? Yes, I have. But I try to restrict it to trying software to see if it will do what I want or using it for a small one time need that doesn't justify purchasing an expensive package. (But that still doesn't make it right.) /soapbox off Larry R. Pint > -----Original Message----- > From: tclug-list-bounces at mn-linux.org [mailto:tclug-list-bounces at mn- > linux.org] On Behalf Of Mike Miller > Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 5:04 PM > To: John J. Trammell > Cc: tclug-list at mn-linux.org > Subject: Re: [tclug-list] Poll topic- I use linux because... > > On Mon, 28 Aug 2006, John J. Trammell wrote: > > > On Mon, Aug 28, 2006 at 10:07:22AM -0500, Mike Miller wrote: > >> On Sun, 27 Aug 2006, Bob Hartmann wrote: > >> > >>> 3. Stealing from Microsoft and Adobe is wrong. > >> > >> (A) It isn't "stealing" because you are not taking anything away from > >> them when you make a copy of something. It's not like taking someone's > >> purse. It's more like taking a photo of someone's purse. > > > > Utter nonsense. In today's legal climate, regardless of your opinion of > > the matter, it is a prosecutable offense, and it is irresponsible of you > > to say otherwise. > > It might be hard for you to accept this, but a law that equates copying a > file with stealing a purse is a very bad law. > > Mike > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list