<story><title>&quot;Most of you steal your software&quot;</title><url>http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/10/most-of-you-steal-your-software.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>jscheel</author><text>It&apos;s amazing, and frankly stupid, how many people try to justify theft. Sorry guys, regardless of what utopian ideals of OSS you have, and I have them too, you must respect the creator&apos;s wishes. If they ask you to pay for the software, then you MUST pay for the software. Anything else is theft.&lt;p&gt;Let&apos;s say you are a freelance developer. Do you think for one second that it would be ok for your clients to let you do all the work, then take your code and not pay you? I mean, knowledge should be free, right? Screw the fact that you built the software with the expectation of getting paid for your hard work.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s one thing to create something with the intention of sharing it with the world. It&apos;s an entirely different thing for anybody to justify stealing what you have done.</text></comment>
<story><title>&quot;Most of you steal your software&quot;</title><url>http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/10/most-of-you-steal-your-software.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>moccajoghurt</author><text>Don&apos;t review the letter from today&apos;s perspective.&lt;p&gt;Bill Gates didn&apos;t know that his work will spread over the world and he will become one of the richest persons alive.&lt;p&gt;He didn&apos;t know that there will be a huge open source community in the future, where it is normal to develop software for free.&lt;p&gt;All he knew is that he was working fulltime on something for three years and wasn&apos;t payed for it.&lt;p&gt;For me this letter is just a snapshot of the past with an understandable point of view.</text></comment>