Z:gnu-www-ja-rms-nyu-2001-transcript--8617c2-But when somebody invited me t/en

But when somebody invited me to sign a non-disclosure agreement, my conscience was already sensitized. It remembered how angry I had been, when somebody promised not to help me and my whole lab solve our problem. And I couldn't turn around and do the exact same thing to somebody else who had never done me any harm. You know, if somebody asked me to promise not to share some useful information with a hated enemy, I would have said yes. You know? If somebody's done something bad, he deserves it. But, strangers &mdash; they haven't done me any harm. How could they deserve that kind of mistreatment? You can't let yourself start treating just anybody and everybody badly. Then you become a predator on society. So I said, &ldquo;Thank you very much for offering me this nice software package. But I can't accept it in good conscience, on the conditions you are demanding, so I will do without it. Thank you so much.&rdquo; And so, I have never knowingly signed a non-disclosure agreement for generally useful technical information such as software.