If I have not somehow entered an agreement with Google, giving them the right to use my private information anyway, then yeah - they should not be forced to answer me by mail. They should be forced to compensate me in court. But if me and Google are in some relationship exchanging 21st century goods like "search" and "private data", then they should be forced to aknowledge and respond to me if there are issues with said relationship, and especially if they are not upholding their end.

I fail to see the relevant distinction. We are exchanging goods, both "paying" and both "buying"... What makes "I am paying in info" wrong and "Google is buying info" right?

It is not free. You are paying with your privacy and helping them build one of the largest and most interesting databases in the world. If they believe they have any right to do anything with any of your data, this must stem from a claim that there is some sort of contract. If the end user has no way to contact Google (beyond getting a formulaic donotreply-email), he or she has no way to force Google to uphold their end. Without such measures, the contact cannot be binding, and without any attempt to allow the user such measures, Google could even be acting in bad faith.

Indeed, and maybe some mathematical wizardry that would allow a small string to uniquely identify a huge string, such as code...

Because some people think "free" can only mean that they are personally free to do whatever they want. Just like any free society has no laws against murder.

Your trolling just jumped the shark...

I have not heard of any currency that has ever had a fixed value, and I would be very surprised if Forbes could name one. It is pretty obvious that buying power will fluctuate over time, and shifting circumstances. The size of an economy that routinely uses a given coinage is what gives stability - modified by whatever good, bad, stabilizing or ruinous government or speculator interventions and manipulations are performed, of course.

This is definitely an important aspect in these cases. As you pointed out yourself, though; we do not know how relevant it was to this case. How offensive were these guys really being, how hard would it have been for her to interject directly, etc. etc.?
I do get how it is infinitely easier to snap a few photos and seemingly "deal" with the situation without confronting people directly. It is never pleasant to ask others to adjust their behaviour, and not coming off as meek or, dare I say it, bitchy, is always a balancing act. Especially for women in a "boys world" setting. You are right on the money on the timing issue, too, I suspect.

But in this case, we do know one thing: She was offended, they were not out to offend her, had not been confronted by her or staff, they had not had a chance to apologize or change their behaviour. And she brought out the big guns first; public shaming.

If she did not feel like confronting them direclt (which she advocates herself in her blog post, incidentally), she should have gotten hold of the staff and had them handle it. The staff reaction to the incident more or less proved this would have worked. Noone would have been fired - in all probability, they guys would have been told that someone was offended, they would have had a hard time figuring out why (dongle/dick jokes can be part of a chauvenist culture, but are not necessarily inherently offensive), and they would probably have piped down.

She overreacted, and she hurt people and her cause.

But you are absolutely right in calling out that the cause itself is just. There are plenty of examples where women are being ridiculed, shamed or just plain not welcomed in the tech (and other) communities.

Oh, I know how you feel, how your specific one-person use case means that you do not need a licence. And that the person using your code without a licence has been lucky so far.

But, and this is what you have still not aknowledged or understood, it seems, is that we are not talking about you. We are talking about licences in general, and how they are necessary for effective sharing of code and code fragments.

As I said at the start of this discussion:

I am not saying that you personally should use a licence. Keep sharing your code on a "here, use this until I decide to sue you - which I promise I won't do, but not in any legally binding terms". But there are good reasons to reject such terms, and for seeking out code that is covered by a licence.

But, from your initial comments, it seems you are confused about the repercussions of your choices:

And this is specifically the kind of situation where a licence is required. That person was breaking the law. He or she opened themselves to lawsuits. Because you did not bother to wrap your gift properly. That is your choice - you can keep you gift if you want - but if what you want is for others to use your code, you would actually be better off actually giving them those permission in a legal sense too.

What you are doing right now, to use an analogy, is like giving a stranger the keys to a new car and walking away. While refusing to tell him whether you will call the cops on him if he drives it. He would be a fool to get in, and you are a fool if you think you have given the car in the full sense of the word.

By not licencing your work, you limit its usefulness. Keep doing it, by all means. But don't try to tell other people who actually care about usefulness and being sued that you have found a better path. You have not.

If they are using your published code, without any sort of licence or agreement, they are putting themselves at a big risk legally. As well as making their projects forever contingent on your continued acceptance.

Not in the slightest. I never said that someone could not possible be dumb enough to take those risks. But, OK, if you want to split hairs, then your code published without a licence is useless to anyone who vaues their own money and time, and uselees for any project or software that anyone needs to rely on for anything at all.

You know, it is just great that you personally is not going to sue those people. Pat yourself on the back for me. But it is not a "logical error" when people are not willing to risk their money, business and project on assumptions that all code they have copied will be managed in the same way.

"Decent people" would not ask other people to accept such insane risks, in order to use their code. And anyone "behaving reasonably" would not assume that risk. That you personally have not sued some guy does not mean that lawsuits do not happen, or that wanting to ensure oneself against them is not a good idea.

So we are back at "sorry, your specific use case is not the only thing that matters".

Your particular situation - giving out a complete game, giving out code fragments for viewing only - fits with your parable.
Your parable fails utterly, when compared to the topic at hand - sharing code for others to use and implement. This is where you need a license. Noone said you need a license for your completely irrelevant activity - just like noone said you needed a license to read a book or bake a cookie.

Licenses are needed for sharing code for others to copy and use in their own projects.

Disliking licenses on the basis that they are bad at doing something else than they were made for, is unconvincing as an argument against licenses. The GPL is horrible a baking cookies with, but that is completel beside the point too...

And without that permission being written down, in say... a license, your code is useless for anything but looking at.

If that was it's purpose, fine. But that is not the purpose of code. Code is meant to be run, improved, copied and used. And since our laws are ridiculous, we need licenses for that - otherwise we could not doing without opening ourselves to endless litigation.
Your personal niche of "I'd just like for people to look at this" is comparable to your story about tales. It is not comparable to 99%+ of all sharing of code.

That is exactly how real life works, when it comes to copyright (not cookies). You do not need a license to eat a cookie, nor to look at code - but you do need a license to use code. The parable is much more illustrative than yours, even though we have to accept that in the world of the story, they have laws regarding foodstuff, that are as insane as our lawws regarding code.

Your parable is useless with regards to this conversation, as the enjoyment of a tale does not hinge on the ability to copy and paste it. Code fragments, which is what we were actually talking about, are useless without a license to copy them.
Also, you story assumes a daily, informal interaction and mutual respect and love between the actors. With code fragments, we need something a bit more practiacal than having to ask for each time you use or change a variable.

So yeah, cute story, but I would rather have one that actually has some bearing on the topic at hand.

Fox version!

I bet it'll be a Bill O'Reilly animation shouting...