What about the cost of finding the person? The lawyers they had to hire, the IT guys to log IP addresses, the cost of legal documents and court fees etc. Also, let's not forget that the lawsuits are filed to act as a deterrence for future wanna be file sharers.

hahhaaa... I wish I had mod points. I don't know if they got the Bill Gates joke.

They can spend millions in trying to integrate office in to hotmail and yet every time I enter my user-id I have to put the "@hotmail.com" Really? You couldn't check to see if I put in hotmail.com in my address bar and then just assume that? I can understand if I linked from MSN.com and you gave a drop down for it. At least make it a drop down so I don't have to type the damn thing out.

We've talked about this before but why do people in OSS community accept odd names? Guacamole? Would you consider this to be a serious product for home use even?

Evidence: http://www.suntimes.com/news/2127966,CST-NWS-cameras29.article They resist EVERYTHING that could possibly catch them doing something they shouldn't be...you know like sounding like hard-asses when people ask them basic questions such as "what am I being stopped for?" What is their problem with every technology that gets introduced? 911 operators have all their calls recorded, why can't these men and women agree to this? It looks like they're trying to hide things. The recent news reports of off-duty cops beating women, getting in to bar fights etc. isn't exactly helping their case either. Again, my two cents, but based on actually reading the news!

I'll say it anyway. Man, shut the f*ck up already!

I get that this is Slahdot and bitching is a way of life here, but can we please just put this shit to rest. People use whatever technology is good for them. Each has costs, each has benefits, each has security issues, each has usability issues, each has moron users, each has technical users that can hack it to make it work, each is attacked by criminals to exploit, each can be used by governments where they see fit, each can be used by non-profits where it fits, and each can cost whatever the f*ckin' money it wants, each can be bought by whomever in a box, DVD, flash drive, ftp, torrent, or whatever...

I like to see lists of how your use of it has benefited you..."I use it and I like it because I can do x,y, and z which is what I needed" This shit of, "your dick is small so we can't really talk about my man-boobs" argument is starting to annoy me.

Do you use Office 2007 everyday? I use 2007 at work and it actually is easier to work with that Office 2003 and its menus that I use at home. The UI is not hard to get use to...just annoying for the first two weeks. After that, you wonder why it wasn't this way from the beginning.

It's like working on a laptop with a touchpad and then switching to a TrackPoint. You'll complain for two weeks and miss it dearly once it's taken away.

Use things first..compare..and then whine!

The Wall Street Journal is a newspaper that's been charging for online content since as long as I can remember their site. Crain's Chicago Business is another site that charges. I pay for that site since it covers Chicago business news much better than any TV station in Chicago does.

See some sort of pattern? People will pay for the content if it is valuable enough. If it's Perez Hilton's blog, no one cares to pay for it. Many times, WSJ is the first one to break some sort of major news story. Crain's covers Chicago Business in depth and has access to local business leaders because of it.

It doesn't matter that others in their peer group give crap away for free. If you put some effort in to making a good product, people will buy it.