> If a company is sending out cease & desists, it's not abandonware by definition. True, but you cannot assume that it is abandonware if a cease & desist lette

> If a company is sending out cease & desists, it's not abandonware by definition. True, but you cannot assume that it is abandonware if a cease & desist letter is not sent out. The rights holder may be unaware of the unauthorized distribution or the site maintainer may be unaware that the rights holder is still selling or supporting the product. While I have seen examples of games being pulled by abandonware sites at their own initiative, that is typically because these releases are higher profile. In the case of application and operating software it would be much more difficult to figure out since anything that is still being supported is probably going to be through obscure channels for legacy systems.