Morally they are equivalent... Would the Rosenberg's have been less treasonous if they took money vs doing it for free?
What I find amazing is every time someone other than MS deals with the Chinese you crow about it but when its Microsoft you blow it off or give it a limp wrist-ed 'I wish they did not do that'. Any reason for that?
So you see no value in selling items, verses giving them away? You also don't see them as any sort of barrier to prevent rogue or despot regimes from accessing technology?
Microsoft has never been fined for violating export control, nor are they making new announcments about free technology for Russia. Remember in the past IBM has been fined for illegal exports of technology, yet today they are releasing PR items that that are outright giddy.
IBM Delivers Free Software and Technical Resources to Russia
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/19197.wss
To Russia From IBM: A Hand With Open Source Development
http://www.techweb.com/headlines_week/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=178601922