David91 you are quite right that there is a change. And that's what all the kvetching is about. You hit it on the head when you say it's like playing a computer game with a very busy whacking at the keyboard. I didn't sign up to play a computer game, I just want LW to work as fabulously as it once did with a less than 50% failure rate. The change is for most of us a huge obstacle to using the LW app. That doesn't make me regret having put $17.50 into the hands of people who write GNU software for the love of it. If I had a million I would send them half.

I went to my LW Help menu to the Review Limewire command which launched my browser and took me to <http://download.com.com/3302-2179_4-10195993.html> The majority of LW users are now giving it a nasty thumbs down. 73% !!! Time to rethink your posture.

As for debates. I will look for other fora to have the kinda debate I like to have. This is not one of em. Indeed I don't think corporate super-profits are sacred or beyond debate or even legal action. In fact, I thought that's why P2P networks came into being at all. The history of GNU and open source is not found in Microsoft or Disney. It is found among those software writers and computer users who have tried from the get go to keep computing in the hands of the public. Most of them hate the corporations that stole the desktop computer from its humble origins and turned into a Wall Street casino that was part of the wreckage of many people's life savings not long ago, remember?

I live in California. We know all about corporate super-profits in energy and healthcare and entertainment. We got fleeced for billions by unregulated ENRON. The latter used your argument to say it was OK. Last week the NY Times published an article showing that Vivendi Universal is hiring hackers to bring down P2P networks and to write worms that will erase the harddrives of that contain pirated music. The post fake songs on servers that are actually viruses. That IS illegal! Yesterday Vivendi sued Bertelsman over Napster. No love among them either. And they are threatening Apple over iTunes4.

But you wanna give me lessons in economics? I have a PhD in econonics! I recall these cannibals opposed the audio cassette, Betamax, CD ROM, minidisc, Apple iDVD and every technology they feel is a "threat" to their profits. They indeed effectively killed minidisc in the USA. They also deprive the artists the "own" from their rightful share of the intellectual property they are so keen to "protect." The legal caseload on this subject can fill many rooms. But let's not go there. Y'all in Singapore, global shrine to unfeterred capitalism, think all is fair in money and profit. That little prosperous fester of unbridled materialism is also openly authoritarian and has produced the most compliant and self-censored people in the world. Maybe tomorrow the followers of Lee Kwan Yu will dictate death penalty for music pirates. ;-) Time to rethink your posture.