>Hello Ed,
>
>I don't disagree with you but you might use a better example. If I take a car out for a test drive for a few months and put 10k miles on it, I reduce it's value to the owner. Someone uses my software and doesn't pay me, it decreases my return on my investment in hardware/software/time. In my case I can usually use the materials, even some of the code, in another product. Please be assured, I in no way approve of taking anything I haven't earned.
>

Would you feel better if I'd said you stole a $2000 set of medical reference books? It's the same thing. Theft.

>Most of the professionals in this business I have meet over the last 20 years are pretty honest, I'm happy to say.
>

I'd agree, but we've seen at least one instance where someone here on UT came out and said it's OK that they wanted to pirate software, because it was just for one project that they were going to do, and they wouldn't get prosecuted for stealing it. That's what started me up. Walter just continued to touch a raw nerve in the area of the rights of the owner to intellectual property.

What Walter doesn't seem to realize is that he's denied the author the right to establish the terms of access to the author's intellectual property, because it'd be more convenient for Walter that way. Convenience is in no way an excuse for taking what isn't yours, even where your intent is to give it back if it isn't what you want, or pay the asking price if it is.

Neither is someone's belief that the cost asked for an item is too high. If the cost is too high, get what you want elsewhere, or offer less to the owner and see if they'll accept your terms. It's been that way for years when buying real estate (when's the last time someone you know paid the asking price for a house when it was set too high?) and we're seeing this now in the commercial airfare industry - if you don't like the published rate for a flight, there's a thriving business now on the net, where you can say to an airline "$500 is too much for this flight - I'll offer you $385. Take it or leave it." The airline has the right to take the $385, ignore your offer, or make a counter-offer.

If I have a piece of software you'd like to try before you buy, when I don't have a demo or evaluation terms available, at least give me the simple courtesy of saying "I'd like to buy it, but not without seeing how it works first." Give me the right as owner to say "Get bent", or if I want to make the sale, give you a chance to try it out. At least you've acknowledged that it's as much my decision as yours as to whether you can peek under the hood before buying it.