"To Talk of Many Things" has a rant on software piracy (part 1, part 2), it seems he was under the impression that it was less rampant than it really is, and perhaps isolated to big applications that were sold by companies such as Adobe, Microsoft, and the likes. Knowing from experience I know this is not the case...
Although I agree, I write freeware (Usually GPL) and ask for a 5$ donation, I know a few thousand people use the software, and some have written favorable reviews, no one has donated(yet). I feel that its human nature that if its free(legally obtained or not) then take it. I do feel that this attitude is changing, mainly because of all the law suites for music piracy and ads for by the movie industry against movie piracy...
I do also feel a bit guilty, here I am being sad that no one has donated for my software before, yet I use kung-log all the time, but never have donated... maybe I should go do that now :)
On another note, I donated to Six Apart for Movable Type but lost my update key, I have asked repeatedly for them to please send me my key again, but they have not.
Where am I going with all this, don't really know... back to work I go.