>I think this started becuase some users where asking about statements like "Set decimal to ##" and we'd ask "Did you read the help file or manual on this statement? do you understand what it does?" and they'd say "No, I don't own a legal copy; here in my country we buy pirated copies of Visual Studio & all MS products -- it's the way we do it... The FoxPro program I'm working on is pirated too"

In the two companies back home where I worked, we had to start with so-called yellow copies of mFoxPlus for a year or two, because nobody was selling them at the time; however, as soon as FP came out, we found somebody who will smuggle a legal copy for us (!). And then, when we needed support, we had to make an extremely expensive and long internatial call to London, only to be put on hold for a considerable time while the registration number was checked, and then "you have an American registration number, can't help you from here. Call America. Cheers.". Well, that was before Microsoft.

Even today, when my home company is using and selling everything legal (no machine leaves the office without a legal copy of Windows, and we are probably the only company in town enforcing this policy), the aid coming from the principals ends up in "look at the ... topic in Help", and there it says "consult your admin" or "consult your dealer" - which is no help at all when you're the admin and the dealer pointed you to that topic.

OTOH, a good example is Hungary, where they had a mass legalization movement (initiated by Bill Gates' visit to Budapest and the money he promised in 1994 or 5); before that, I've seen too many hacked packages with Hungarian intros on them.

So, it's depending on the country: in some cases, some of these people are working for peanuts and can't afford to buy. In some other cases, they're still working very cheap, but that money means a lot there - and they still may not afford to buy legal software, because they'd be outrun by other guys who'd still do it cheaper, using illegal. Not an easy story.

>We get frustrated when helping people; but when they don't even check the help stuff first; just say "I need you to write this for me becuase I don't know how" (which has happened in the IRC several times) we, those that are there to help; get frustrated because we give them info & they don't have a clue as to what their doing...

Remember... Dovi Gilbert, if I'm not mistaken. Some people really expect us to do their homework, and keep asking around here without even having RTFM. Well, what usually works is "try to start with this...", and when they don't have a clue, sorry.