Some thoughts on this thread...
Suppose you are about a mile away from the end of a 5 mile race, the prize money goes three deep, you've got three guys with you, and you know that all of them have the ability to outsprint you in the kick. How do you make sure you do not go home empty-handed? Your only option is to increase the pace to the maximum level of discomfort you can humanly or inhumanly tolerate and hope that your competition will not be able or willing to suffer that much pain. If you even subconciously expect any degree of comfort over that last mile, your prize money will literally run past you.
The copyright laws can be created, interpreted, etc in a number of different ways, but the root of the problem is the same - greed. We are surrounded by those who aim straight at our wallet and want the money out of it whichever way it may be obtained. If we do not want them to prosper at our expense, we must approach the issue the same way that the above mentioned runner does - be willing to put up with the maximim discomfort we could endure until the predators drop out of the race. Here the analogy goes a bit out of hand - the guys you race against are still your best friends even when you are the prize money that runs past them, while the predators that want your money are not at all - nevertheless the principle applies.
Do you not like commercial software vendor business practices bad enough to want it them of business? Be willing to put up with a bit of discomofort that not using their software entails. Do not like the greed-motivated copyright laws? Do not listen to music, or watch movies whose creators profit from them. It may hurt a bit at first, but you will not die. Do what it takes to run them into the ground, and be willing to suffer pain while you do it, or you will not win.
Again going back to the running analogy - if you consistently put up with some discomfort in your training for long enough, pretty soon you do not have to worry about your competition having a faster kick with a mile to go - they are a good minute behind at that point, and you can just comfortably coast to the finish. I believe the same thing happens when we go without objectionable products - we learn to comfortably and enjoyably live without them.
-- Sasha Pachev AskSasha Linux Consulting http://www.asksasha.com
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