Ed. note: In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, today's editorial was contributed by a character that both the proprietary software industry and the free software movement fear and loathe: A software pirate. According to the high-handed moral arbiters of the world, a person of such questionable character and loose (as in the opposite of tight, despite what you may have seen elsewhere on the Web) morals is a danger to our very thoughts and consciences. So if you are someone who is easily offended, or if your beliefs are so flimsy that you are afraid they will be shaken by some pirate talk, you may want to skip this one. On the other hand, if you're one of those people who secretly loves to be infuriated, and you're a proud member of the Church of Stallman or a Microsoft shareholder, read on. This editorial is dedicated to every person who has ever copied software and given it out to friends; doubly so if you also gave them the activation crack.

A pirate's life for you

I be Robert Wales, notoriously known as Bob The Burner, privateer in mine own good service, Captain of the famous galleon Asus Core II, proud member of the brotherhood o' pirates. This official document'll be servin' as your confession. Confess and ye shall be spared -- by my troth -- but if ye continue to deny your true nature, you'll take the long walk, and I cannot vouch for ye among the sharks. Join the brotherhood of pirates, or swim with the sharp-toothed fishes.

Thou'rt a pirate. Sack up, ye cowards, and admit thy crimes! Ye did lend thy copy of Microsoft Office to cousins and family to copy and use freely, knowin' that the sharin' o' one's resources with the same is the very portrait o' charity. Tis a capital idea! Never mindin' the fact that ye didn't pay for it neither -- ye got it from me hometown o' Pirate Bay, a place near 'n' dear to the hearts o' many a casual privateer such as meself. The hearth spot o' every rascal, scoundrel, villain, 'n' knave that e'er dared put laser to dye in the name o' friendly-minded software redistribution.

Bore me not with talk of software freedom, for ye well know that all software is free to redistribute at your own bleedin' discretion. That's why ye gave that already five-fingered Office 2007 Professional disc to your mother's other son -- the fat one -- complete with a freshly generated product key and the activation crack executable. So much for anti-piracy measures, when a cupshot, half-witted candlewaster such as ye can circumvent the devious pre-plottin' of one of the world's largest corporations. Such tactics don't make ye a member of the very first house until ye can 'fess up and join the brotherhood. Skulkin' around in secret, handin' out discs for a lover's fee don't make ye right with either side.

If ye should think that such activities be deboshed and dern, and force ye to carry coals to the personal satisfaction of Pope Stallman and High Inquisitor Jones, take heart: Piss them away with the e'entide's ale. I tell ye truly: Do not play the maid's part for such as these -- do as ye will, and follow thy heart to satisfaction. Thy duty, as ye well know, be to family and friend, not to ideal and artificial virtue. As if thou shouldst strain thyself to the compass of thy wits to figure out how source code be any kind o' personal benefit to a dorbel such as ye, and how a guarantee o' freedoms that ye already possess without the intervention o' others is any more than a big steamin' pile o' prevarication. To thee and to me, all software be free.

The best kind o' loot's the kind ye don't pay for

Admiral Holleyman of the Bull Shit Association dares claim that our craft makes his skainsmates lose (that's the opposite o' win, for all ye spelling-retarded coppocias) $11 billion US dollars every year. Hoy-day! A flight of fancy I've ne'er seen before such bardleture came before me! Such presumptuous posy overflows my yellow bile. As if every man of the brotherhood would actually buy the programs he pirates! Bah! Next, I wager he'll be so bloody daft to presume that blokes should actually read a license agreement, the likes o' which have never been, and may yet never be enforced in full.

Forsooth, me brother, we two know that Microsoft Office isn't worth its weight in fool's gold to us or the false-villains we share with. If ye got more gold than sense, $500 is the price to pay for thyself, and an additional $500 for each man ye care to distribute it to. Waste not thy coin; should ye decide to be a recognized part of the brotherhood, the price is $500 less, per man.

Bore me not with words and obligations of licenses. This program o'er here has a license that grants me the boon o' sharin'; and this program o'er there forbids the same. The grand assumption bein' that I'd trade six ounces of whale dung for the words or the differences between them -- a program's a bloody program! Words be bloody words, all of which are fatally ignorable to the intended licensees, who want not but to use programs in peace.

In sooth we have unfathomable value, but convincing the brotherhood to pay up will do naught but chase us more fervently into the realm of open source, where our value shall remain undiminished. We will still produce, though briefly inconvenienced by the frustrations 'o switchin' platforms. The Admiral would do well to understand that in terms o' software, nothing's truly stolen... just creatively redistributed, and such is the motto of the brotherhood. Learn it and live it, brother.

Copyin's natural

Commodore Garfield means to cross swords with us, brother. Claims he: Ye can invite thy friend to thine abode to view a film, and ye can lend him your DVD, but ye cannot give him a copy for his own self. What cozenry be this? Tis the same, materially -- a movie be watched, and that's all any do care about. The manner in which it be accomplished is related to matters of convenience and personal finance, not the profit of unknowns and the benefit of false morality. The true morality be in one's duty to his brothers, not in how regularly he pays the cartels and consortiums o' the world, or how ardently he adheres to the principles of Pope Stallman. May the wind be at your back, Commodore, but I warrant I shall have the piss of your gravestone on the matter.

Thus we come upon yet another: Tis well to pay to see a movie, and tis well and good to tell one's mates about the movie, but ye be forbidden to record it or to perform it on thine own. Ye can record a film from the television, but ye cannot give it out to anyone. Where be the line to demark this issue? Do me mates have to stop doing abhorrent Johnny Depp impressions and repeatin' lines from films for fear they should violate the secret and invisible financial rights o' others? Who owns the blasted copyright on mine own memory, and can a man buy it back!?

In parting

Such are the issues we face, and may they be remembered for the benefits the powers o' law seek to remove from ordinary citizens.

I accept your admission of piracy, and welcome you to the brotherhood. At last! You admit that you've copied or distributed a program or two without regard for the text that impotently governs it. You skulk in secret no more; bask in the liberation of the moment, and bite thy thumb at the priggish wastrels who refuse to participate. Yo ho!

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