>"From my perspective, you're about as low on the evolutionary scale as alleged members of the human species come - nothing more than a common thief, and not a terribly bright or subtle one at that."
>
>This is what you said to someone. This is what I find offensive. I don't really care what you feel about piracy. You've made you point and that is that. But to throw insults like that is uncalled for.
>

Joe,

I was in no way tactful. But look at what prompted it - the man was told that what he was asking for amounted to piracy, and his response was "So what? I'm not going to be prosecuted for it, and I'm just going to use it to make money one time."

His objection was not that he needed to evaluate it, but that the product in question cost too much, so that he should be entitled to profit from it for nothing. He should be entitled to use it to make money "just this once" off the work of others without compensation. I find that to be morally obscene, and in most cases, criminal. In fact, to some extent he put UT at risk using it as a forum to publicly request that someone engage in criminal activity. I don't know the state of international telecommunications law, but in the US, activity like this caused a number of large BBS boards to be shut down, and their operators indicted in US Federal court for similar sorts of things on a larger scale in the late 1980s.

>To make it (your act of making that statement) worse, at that point you hadn't even bothered to listen to the other person's perspective. It was possible that he had some ideas that you hadn't considered.
>

I find youre position to be unpalatable at best. If this example is what you find to be morally repugnant, I'll not try to change your mind. His position was a call for theft, plain and simple, not to evaluate for possible purchase, but for profit. It ain't situational ethics here, Bucko, it's pure profit motive - in no case was compensating the author ever suggested. In no way was this to be a 'learning experience'. Just simple greed and dishonesty.

There's nothing more to discuss here. EOT.

>Joe
>
>
>>>Neither. I am curious about you. Why you feel you can call people (not me) names (like thief and worse) and insult them the way you do. I am just wondering why you see yourself as a judge of other people's morality.
>>>
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>>Sorry to offend you, unfortunately, I call'em like I see 'em, and some people don't like this. If this makes me appear in a bad light, I'm sorry. I'm equally offended by people who feel that there's nothing wrong with raising the Jolly Roger on occasion.
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>>I apologize for my uncultured response and the unsophisticated and thoughtless means of expressing of my displeasure and annoyance with software pirates of any kind. I have strong feelings about people whose view of what rights are enjoyed by the authors and distributors of software products are subject to 'situational ethics'. It is clearly wrong to publicly censure them in an embarrassing fashion.
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>>I don't apologize for believing that they're dead wrong.
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>>The Russians have the perfect term for these people - it's something like "nykulturney" (with apologies to those who actually speak Russiam and can spell it properly.) Its closest translation in English is 'no culture' or uncultured, uncivilised and barbaric. The individual labelled as such has committed a major faux paux, falling somewhere between bletching loudly at a formal dinner party, and disembowelling one's youngest child on the spot for grabbing the last pork chop on the table before Mom could sit down and eat herself. It carries a serious negative implication about the beliefs and behavior exhibited by the person tagged as such, and IMO, it expresses exactly my classification of the people involved in loose interpretation of what is acceptable recognition of authors' rights.
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>>I don't think you've changed my mind about the morality of the situation. I'm sure that Michel or one of the other sysops here on UT will take appropriate steps to censure me for boorish behavior. I've no more special status here than any other member of UT, and don't expect such.