No, I'm not the only one: you mentioned what you thought was the goal in your initial comment (copyright infringement) and you're restating it now. Again it's very telling this is your "belief", but you acknowledged tacitly that you are unfamiliar with how abandonware projects worked, never having talked to the people. But I have. Do you think it would be maybe wise to acknowledge your beliefs are not based on actual knowledge?
The goals matter. In fact, they matter to you as well, because you've been arguing from a position of belief about the goals ("justify why the pirate things") that is simply incorrect. Why not update your knowledge instead?
> In practice there tends to be. If you are in the retro hardware / software community you will see rare things come up on auction. The idea that all copies just disappeared does not match reality.
This is simply false. I don't think you are into "the retro hardware / software" community at all, I dare you to claim otherwise. Also, rare things do come up on auction, but this doesn't mean as a norm they exist! And the people involved in these projects are breaking all kinds of copyrights and have always been persecuted for this, which you'd know if you were involved in those communities.
> But both of those groups [pirates and abandonware groups] distributed pirated software.
I talked about goals. Your answer is a non-sequitur, because it argues about something that wasn't in dispute. Please try not to do this.
> Then I would encourage you to preserve archival copies of things you want to see preserved.
You haven't the faintest idea of what I do or don't do. More importantly, we're not discussing me, are we? Please try sticking to the point.
At this point you're sounding like a mix of dishonesty and willful ignorance.