I read the original post and the discussion with interest. The conclusion seems to be that there are lots of alternatives to pirating, and most, if not all, of

I read the original post and the discussion with interest. The conclusion seems to be that there are lots of alternatives to pirating, and most, if not all, of the posters agree that it is at least unethical to use pirated software. However, there is an idea that still makes me feel uncomfortable. Competitive advantage was mentioned as a factor in the choice, but do you really think that the rest of the world shares your mindset with you? As an example, take the eLance, vWorker, etc coders for hire . Giving the amount of labor that is being sourced there. Piracy is rampant on developing countries, and you're really competing not only in quality or hourly rates, but also on the amount of investment required to have the necessary tools. Ironically, all this work is outsourced from companies that likely respect licensing conditions religiously. The problem has no easy solution. Either pirate in the same level as them or make them pay as you do. The second solution seems to me unrealistic in a short to medium time frame. This is not an argument in favour of piracy, just an observation on how piracy unbalances the competition. Personally, I always use free tools. If there is no free tool available for the job, either I pay for it or don't accept the work. In the past, I accepted a junior student installing an unlicensed copy at home just to learn as something that was not hurting anyone, and even likely to benefit MS/Adobe/Autodesk in the long term. Nowadays, there are "Express" or "Lite" versions of almost everything, including SQL Server and Oracle, and there is little room for such arguments. Hey, and if you're not sure if your MS Office using customer is going to be able to open your LibreOffice sales proposal, just save it as a PDF.