>It is illegal. It's cut and dry for U.S. citizens.

I would not bet on that. When VFP9 was published it was not yet clear that Microsoft would stop with VFP entirely. In hindsight, after we relied on our development in VFP, we were left cold with hard facts. A court could use that as an argument. I don't think the US is so much sold out to corporations, I think the viewpoints have changed somewhat in the last decades. They realize that if a company makes billions of dollars, that the money comes from the hard working citizens, and secondly the company has responsibility in the products through which they accumulate that money.

A little bit different, but also on the line of contracts, there are rulings about licenses when customers are forced to pay regular yearly fees to keep the software running. Clients signed a contract, thinking they can afford the payments. After stopping payment, some companies tried to force them back into the contract by switching off the software. Court argues that the data that has been input is the property of the client, and must be made available through the same software, even when they stop paying fees. So the software must be activated, and only active support may be stopped, but the program must be working.

During agreeing to a contract a person may not be aware of all his rights. Also law situation may change, or gain of knowledge that was not present at that time. If he finds out later that he has rights, it is perfectly fine to pursue his rights. If they suddenly pass a law that minimum salary is doubled, would the employer be able to say, since the employee has signed and agreed to the lower wage, minimum salary would not need to make effective?


>My second statement is that when we individually agree to something, we should stand by our word. It's been said, "Let your yes be yes, and your no no." It should be as simple as that.

It should be, but it is not. Large corporations have so much power, if you put the responsibility into the hand of the small guy, he will be the only victim. The big guy would never loose. If a corporation creates contracts that are against the rights of the people, why is it not their responsibility to let their yes be yes? Did they not agree to the law? Or perhaps they are above the law, because they can do what they wish.

Again, I am glad we have moved away from the middle ages.