> > > Violating copyright laws because "software should be free" or "I found it > > > on the Internet!!!" is dangerous if you actually have a job or your mommy > > > and daddy aren't willing to pay your legal costs if you get caught. Like > > > stealing money from winos, you might not get caught but it teaches > > > dangerous habits that shouldn't be taught in your social life or > > > professional life. OpenBSD and the other open sourced operating systems > > > have been very good about this: Nomen should not be suggesting dangerous > > > habits on a public mailing list.
I was not suggesting anything. I was answering a rhetorical question with a rhetorical answer. Read what I wrote and don't have a cow, dude. If you want Windows you can buy a copy or rip one off. That is the reality. FreactOS isn't going to help people who want Windows. > > My question was retorical. So was my answer your question was based on. > I'm afraid that some folks do think that pirated copies are "free". Ethics > can be very difficult: is it ethical to steal from a thief? Yes, see below :-) > For someone who's living in the "I can steal it for free, why bother with > a freeware one" world, explaining ethical or moral behavior can be > awkward. Because freeware has to have advantages other than being free. OpenBSD is not good because it's free as in beer, it's good because it's good for technical reasons. The fact it's free as in not GPL, and doesn't cost money is just more to like about it. It is not the main thing to like about it. There's that and the twenty some odd boxes I bought in the last 20 years that had various versions of Windows forcibly installed that I paid for, most without any install media. Forgive me for not feeling like a criminal when I run bootlegged copies of XP in a VM to do stuff for $WORK since I do believe I have the right to run to run copies of the Curse of Redmond without pissing further hard earned $CURRENCY away on them. BTW Redmond assholes, if you're reading this, you shitheads owe me twenty fucking CDs with your shit-for-an-OS installation on them. Until then, FUCK YOU! Go Chinese hackers, you rock! ;-) Keep on crackin' it babe, keep on crackin' it. As far as I'm concerned, Microsoft is the criminal. The people who rip off copies are justified based on MicroPimp's criminal business practices. Don't try to extrapolate this to other issues, it's specific to MicroPimp.
