I think the whole licensing thing is a racket when it comes to boxed software. Downloads where no physical goods are exchanged is another issue but you should be able to sell or give away a boxed product just like just about any other goods I can think of. The big software companies are eager to reach the point where they can rent/lease software that is hosted on their servers or downloads that will expire (and have that expiration enforced by hardware embedded in the CPU). I completely sympathize about the piracy problem but they really get carried away sometimes with measures that don't stop piracy and irk their customers.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken