🚀 go-pugleaf

Suppose that I go out and buy a computer, say a SPARC, but without an OS.  But
suppose that either my roomate or I grab a copy of the OS kernel for the 
appropriate maachine.  At this point, I am now in Federal violation for
stealing.  (so far, so good).  Now, with this stolen kernel, I hop on the net
and grab a copy of the gnu OS source, and then proceed to compile it.  I now
have a 'legal' OS.  But the question is: Am I still in violation of the
Federal law for software piracy, give that I have gotten rid of all of the 
swiped OS, since it was only used to bootstrap to the GNU OS.  And possibly
more importantly, if my buddy  buys the same machine, minus OS, and I give
him the GNU binaries, is he in Federal violation, even though he does not
know that the bootstrap for the program was stolen?

For the record, this has not happened to me, but I have observed that 
(especially) students will 'overextend' themselves to buy a piece of hardware
that will be somewhat current in a few years, and do with less software.
EG, spend the extra $$ to get a '386 over a '286, so that the next generation
of software can be run, but have to give up a word processor or spreadsheet
programs.
prrogram.