Ed,

I'm in general agreement with your sentiments (although I probably wouldn't have stated them quite as forcefully <g>).

< contribution > 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 (contribution from my 3-year-old, left in for aesthetic reasons <s>) < /contribution >

I do think we need to be careful of making sweeping generalisations though about "areas" or "people" or "parts of the world", as this is an international forum which needs some diplomatic discretion.

Cheers,

Andrew

>>Ed,
>>
>>Could you expand on this point please. I must have misconstrued your point. I live in an area that has very stringent IP and anti-piracy laws and many of my clients don't want their IP available to all of their contractors.
>>
>
>Very simple - look at the threads about copy protection, 'decompiling', hiding source, encryption, trying to lock things down by hard disk serial number - they largely come from areas of the world where piracy is rampant and accepted practice. Not all of the questions come from there, but most that show up here do.
>
>There are parts of the world where people not only don't think there's anything wrong with it, but where they openly go about trying to actively pirate commercial product through sites like UT. My opinion, not open to debate or further discussion, is that software piracy is theft, pure and simple, and that if there's a Hell, I think a special part should be set aside for developers who pirate software, and I hope they will rot there for eternity.
>
>There are legitimate reasons for hiding source code. There are paranoid reasons for hiding source code. There are dishonest reasons for hiding soure code. I only have problems with the last. I have problems with piracy under all circumstances. More importantly, I feel that people who are willing to accept piracy as acceptable behavior are ethically and morally bankrupt, and not worth the investment of time to tell them to go f*ck themselves.
>
>Is further clarification needed? If not, EOT.
>