[k_semler]

Legally, there is no such thing as abandonware. Copywrite exists in the United States for a period of 75 years from the date of creation by the corporation, or the lifetime of the author plus 50 years. Since the "electronics revolution" only happened in 1978, there are no "abandoned software" which are legal to re-distribute without the copyright holder's permission. To do otherwise is copyright infringement, and subject to civil and criminal penalties.

Personally, I consider the mantra of "no harm no foul". My personal "method" for distribution of abandoned titles is after 2 years of no support of whatever product you wish to distribute, or 2 generations of newer software availability. I have no problems distributing old software no longer supported by the author, or available for purchase from an authorised retailer. Between the years of 2001-2003, I used to run an abandonware site specialising in MS products. I had everything available from MS DOS 1.0, to Windows 95 OSR 2.5, all office versions up to version 1997, and every biuld of OS/2 released to the market. Once Win7 goes retail on 22 Oct 2009, (it already reached RTM), I will have no problems informing people on where to get WinXP, and how to crack WPA and WGA.