Purchasing products made by a company that is out of compliance with their software licences is not the same as purchasing stolen goods.

I'm not sure if your lack of comprehension is deliberate, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
I'm saying that if Microsoft is going to sponsor a law protecting copyright holders, then there should not be exceptions in that law for certain classes of copyright holders.
I am not saying that Microsoft should sue GPL violators. I am saying that a Microsoft sponsored law change should not exclude GPL vendors from suing under the same circumstances that Microsoft can sue.

Except by over-licencing, buying more cover than you actually need.

Exactly.

It would be more reasonable if the law provided the same protection to Open Source licence-holders.
So far none of the pro-microsoft comments on this article address this issue, which is adding weight to the astroturfing theory.
I'm not saying that you are astroturfing. I'm just waiting for your reply that you agree or disagree that Open Source licence-holders should also be protected. Just because I release software with an Open Source licence, doesn't mean you can mis-appropriate my code. Open Source licences have conditions too and the authors of the code retain their rights.

I haven't seen any of the /.ers who take Microsoft's side on this issue address the anomaly that Open Source licence-holders are not given the same protection by this law that is given to Microsoft.
Until one of the suspected astroturfers posts a comment supporting the removal of the Open Source exception, they will remain suspect.
 

And if the non-US supplier provides fake software audit certs, that should let the US company off the hook, because the US company has then acted in good faith.
And of course the law should apply to all licence violations, including GPL violations. If Microsoft is doing this for the right reasons, surely they would extend the same protection to software vendors who choose to use Open Source licencing models. No? Ah, I see, Microsoft give their true motives away.

If any of my representatives sign a trade deal with USA that involves adopting stupid American laws here, I will bitch-slap that representative until the cops drag me away.

I think it's drawing a long bow to put child labour in the same category as using a bootleg copy of Excel.
Licence violations are harder to police as well.

Also I would expect the likes of Microsoft to be more capable of looking after themselves than exploited poor people.

If I contract out some work to an overseas company, am I expected to police the software they use internally?
And even if that has some merit, the exception for Open Source licence violations exposes this for what it is.
Thank God I don't live in America.

As soon as I saw this article come up on /. I wondered how long will it take for paid astroturfers to put a spin on this.

I think this was one of IBM's mistakes with OS/2 Warp. It ran Win3.1 and DOS apps so well that no-one made native apps for OS/2.

Six years, rounded to the nearest half decade, is half a decade.

I did this for my wedding photos in 2002. I shopped around for photographers who would do this and the only one who agreed was actually cheaper than the others and took very good photos. The first few that I approached laughed in my face and smugly told me no-one in their industry would do it. I have since advised all my friends as they got engaged to shop around for a photographer who will let you have all the photos (and raw files) and release copyright to you.

A few years ago my brother, who is not a computer nerd but reasonably self motivated as a user, downloaded a linux distro and asked me to help install it.

I visited him for the weekend (he lives in a different city) and sat in his living room watching TV with my nephews while he tried to see how far he could get. I told him to give me a yell if he got stuck.

When he finally called me over to the computer (one TV episode later, so probably about half an hour) he was finished.

Not every non-nerd needs a nerd to install Linux and configure it to make it work for them.

I do something similar, but not to the same extent. My date of birth on Facebook is the 1st of January 1970. I was born in the 70s so I've given them the right decade for their demographic stats out of courtesy. I have my first name and my last initial as my FB name. I don't allow access to 3rd party apps.

I don't friend anyone connected with my workplace and I don't post anything that could get me fired if someone from HR stumbled across it and linked it to me. I also don't friend people who are not connected to me offline.

Good lecture though. I will link to your post when advising others.

Then stop. Unless you're getting something out of it, why be free support for friends and roommates? I'll help people once for twice as a favour, but after that I play dumb and make like I've exhausted my knowledge on the matter and refer them to a professional.

I tend to think of the two world wars as one war with a twenty year cease-fire in the middle of it. If the Allies hadn't been so harsh with their terms of surrender at the end of WW1 then Germany might not have gone through the hardship that breed such extreme fascism. If we give our defeated enemies a little dignity they hopefully won't rise up twenty years later and clobber us. But we never learn.

Actually it was a Serb nationalist who started it. But that event was just a spark in an already volatile situation. The real reason that the European countries were itching to have a go at each other was imperialism on all sides. They were all expanding their empires/colonies throughout Asia and Africa and were fierce rivals.

The assassination of the Austrian duke just gave them an excuse to start open hostilities.