> If the law is not unjust or my opinion of the company is irrelevant then I can't knowingly break the law and still claim the law abiding moral high-ground.

Not quite black and white there. For instance, in 1990. we (the company here) wanted to have a legal copy of Fox, the FP1.01 was just released. We could bear the cost (wasn't small in then terms) now that we've made enough money on the same copy of mFoxPlus that sixty other guys were using all around the area. We had to break a few laws to obtain that legal copy (!), and guess what, we had trouble getting support for it (including the cost of a long international phone call), because we got a US serial number, and the number we got was in the UK, so we were supposed to call the US (making that an intercontinental phone call). Because Fox Software didn't have any nearer representative and generally didn't even know what to do with customers beyond these areas.


>>Why "the doubt"? There can be only one doubt? (just curious about the phrase)
>
>The doubt is because I didn’t fully follow the thread where all this was debated, don’t remember everything about the discussion perfectly either,

Nonononono this was about The Phrase, unrelated to the thread. Why is there a definite article, why is it always "the doubt", never "a doubt" or just "doubt". As if there was only one applicable doubt and any other doubt is unusable in the matter. The weirdness of english gets me every time.

>>As two colleagues of mine once had a dispute, and one said
>>- and why do you keep going around and saying behind my back that I'm so-and-so?
>>- well I can't take you with me each time, but I'll tell the same to you now, face to face.
>
>This is a good one. I will be stealing this and claiming it as my own work. Please don’t repeat the joke again unless you get my written permission.

Then you should also apply the disclaimer: the above was not a joke. It was a move in an otherwise quite serious dispute, which ended with splitting the company (and I, as a founder of it, found myself in the 12% ownership minority which seceded and had barely one PC to our name).
But as long as you use it for non-profit purposes and can prove that no small furry animals were hurt in the process, the GPL applies. The author has probably swindled me too out of some money, which I never bothered to pursue, so if he's damaged, let him stay damaged.