>Hello Jim. Sorry to hear about your experience, but my point was different. What I read in Ed's post is that he's telling other person that because he lives in an "area" or country that he doesn't like, he don't have the right to ask about protecting his code. Ed thinks in terms of "areas" or "world parts" and then extends his conclusions to individuals. We have a lot of software piracy in my country , but I buy all the software I use. Ed's comments tries to make all people in all countries he doesn't like thieves!.
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No, the sad comment I tried to make was that people in areas where software pircy is rampant are most invovled in issues such as copy protection, hiding source and the like. It's mirrored by the fact that many posts related to aids to piracy - decompilers (which have legitimate uses, but are widely abused in an effort to try to steal other people's work) and outright requests for people to help pirate software come from the same parts of the world.
Let me restate - software pirates and thieves, pondscom or worse, and desrve to rot and writhe in agony. The software developer who pirates software so that he can make money is the worst kind of hypocrit - he believes he's entitled to profit from his work (and in reality from other people's work that he can steal) while other software authors are not. These people should be gang-raped with splintery wooden sticks as the prelimiany to their real punishment.
People with 'flexible' viewpoints on piracy are no better - there is no reason to condone or excuse theft.
>Abou my concepts on Property Rights, I should say than I'm libertarian :-). I understand and agree with much about your post and Ed's post.