Wishbone: I'm actually morally perfectly fine with the preservation aspect of "abandonware". If the rights holder of a game doesn't want people's money, I have no problem with the game being put online so it doesn't just disappear down a black hole forever.

What I do have a problem with is people pretending that this is somehow legal and that they have a right to get these games for free. I've seen countless people complain about GOG selling games that "used to be free". No, they didn't use to be free, it's just that the only way to get them before was to pirate them. That's the long and short of it.

Generally, a lot of people online seem to have tremendous difficulty with the terms abandonware, freeware and shareware, and generally seem to think they all mean "in the public domain", which is very far from the truth.