Well, the appendix is a good example of the conservative nature of evolutionary change. There are more than a few genetic traits that have no evolutionary advantage and yet still persist, like attached earlobes or the ability to roll your tongue.
1. repulsive or distasteful.
2. excessively sweet or sentimental.
3. unsophisticated or old-fashioned.
4. sticky; viscid.
Origin:
1930–35, Americanism
(According to dictionary.com)
By the same logic that mime artist who performs on the high street has a right to be paid by everyone who sees his act
hire a venue, charge people to watch your act, and hope they come...
perform in public, and hope they pay...
Published works should be the same : give me something physical and hope I am willing to pay for it, or give it away and ask for payment if they like it...
The current copyright system works on the principle of selling something that people are forced to pay for when they don't need to
You could do a work-around for the GPL argument by making agreeing to a contract functionally identical to the licence a pre-condition for accessing the program. The only problem with that is that it raises questions of liability for bugs.
Anyway, the first paragraph of your post didn't relate to GPL infringements, because mostly GPL authors don't care about non-commercial infringement, because it doesn't really matter. Commercial infringement would still be illegal, so the problematic infringements are not affected.
I see the point you're making - but most of those questions are only relevant for a party forming a Government.
There's no chance of that happening here - I don't mean that in a "they won't get that many votes" sense, but I mean in the sense that they don't have enough people even standing for election. So such a thing is impossible.
It's still important I think to have policies on a wide range of issues, because if you had one as your MP, you'd still want to write to him, and hope he has an opinion on more than a single issue, and such things would be voted on in the Commons.
But let's be fair - individual MPs are not expected to come up with solutions to the economy, or immigration problems. (As an aside, I'm not sure what uncontrolled problem you are referring to - although I appreciate that these might be questions asked by your typical Daily Mail reader, so it's useful to have responses to them.)
I worked, until recently, as a "Student Affairs Administrator" and I see a very similar problem in my own field. Much like Education, Student Affairs/Higher Ed Admin seems to attract those individuals who we might all call "nice but not very bright." They're not, by any means dumb, but they're not the most analytical minds on the planet either. A big part of their job involves thinking through problems, which they are often not equipped to do by the education they've received.
Like K-12 teaching programs, their graduate program does not actually prepare them by teaching them things relevant to actually doing their jobs. Many Student Affairs Administrators spend a great deal of time supervising students, and yet they never take a class on supervision or discuss the best methods for supervising their population, much like many education programs do not focus on strategies that actually improve classroom management.
Both fields share similar philosophies (frakking Dewey and his sloppy Positivism). I've given some consideration to becoming a teacher. I enrolled in a teacher preparation program only to be disgusted by the curriculum and the "push everyone through" attitude displayed by many in my cohort. Only one of the professors I took a course with actually had any experience as a classroom teacher.
Much like in Student Affairs, it's not the money. It's not even necessarily the pool of talent; it's the philosophical underpinnings of the field. "Caring and sharing" and "Everybody's a winner" are the mantras that these fields live by.
Unfortunately, Amazon seems to have a pretty good lock-in on the eBook market right now despite any potential price gaming. They're still much cheaper than the Sony Reader store for most books; Books on Board manages to offer slightly more competitive prices than Sony, but they're not as cheap as Amazon.
Amazon seems to be maintaining its competitive pricing on books, even in the eBook arena; and, other stores are either unable or unwilling to follow suit.
8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss