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Oh, I've duly noted flame wars on highend sites, too.  I think that it's more of a human nature thing than it is of a software thing.

Flame wars?  Sure.  Outright bitching and complaining up and down about the software they (don't) know how to use?  Not nearly as much as I see here.

Quote - I once heard a stat that Poser is THE most pirated software in the world.  If that's true, then it's possible that Poser has more than 20,000,000 users.

Eh, I'd be surprised if Poser sells more than 60,000 licensed units on any given release.  Maybe they do, but I don't care.  So if they have a user base in the millions, that's really a hell of a lot of priated copies being used.  3dsmax is widely known as one of the most pirated 3D applications out there, but we know that has to do with it being so tightly connected to the gaming industry.  You know, all those millions of young gamers who wanted to make mods for their 'levels' first turned to gMax, which was free, then quickly decided to get the 'better' version... which is 3dsmax.  Ooops!... it's $3k, and they've already maxed-out mommy's credit card on porn this month!  Time to pay a visit to the torrent underground.