The world has truly gone mad!
The former 1st General Secretary of the Communist Party and leader of the Præsidium of the Supreme Soviet, Mike Gorby, asked Bill Gates to show leniency to a 'teacher' convicted of piracy.
All of a sudden, everyone, including man+dog, are asking for Microsoft's pardon.
Well, excuuuuse me!
Now, I've got to go to another rule-of-thumb: if the price seems too good, it probably is! Stolen, pirated, or worse.
Moving ahead, my question is, "Is this prosecution for piracy in line with the laws of the land in Russia?"
If so, when Yakov/Ivan/whatever his name is, got the software distribution media from the back of the truck/in an alley from Igor, wasn't that a clue that the provenance of the purchase was suspect.
Now you have all these gooders going around saying, "Have mercy".
Have mercy?
Why don't you stop pirating stuff? OK?
And you, General Secretary Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov, why don't you concern yourself with the humongous amount of a penance you should be observing? For all the souls that were at the gulags when you ran the joint.
Talking like if Bill G. invented the gulag!
Serge, if you were so gung ho about clemency, why didn't you shut the gulags when you were the head monkey at that asylum?
And don't wave that stupid Nobel prize at me; if the racist dictator of South Africa can get one, how exclusive is it?
(I'm still waiting for them to award posthumous prizes to Sadaam and Idi Amin for saving lives by dying!)
Mercy my a$$!!!