Has become? Back in the day HTML was a mish-mash of tags and (eventually) DOM models that were abhorrent and incompatible across browsers.

As soon as you standardize one thing, then the big boys are on to the next big thing. You still have a myriad ways to generate web content, all of which should shield the developer from most of the madness. Standards are good for taking a snapshot of the state of the art at a point in time, allowing developers to say "I support this version" and browsers to guarantee they will render standardized versions correctly. I expect every browser on the market today to correctly render all standardized versions of HTML.

Citation required...

People have no appreciation for the amount of power it takes to run a fully armed and operational battle station.

My goal is to discourage copyrights extending that length of time. Only if one really thought the content was worth many billions would one choose to extend it that long. And society would get reimbursed for the loss to the public domain.

Copyright terms should not be limited to fixed terms. First 14 year term is free + one time unlimited extension costing $50 * (1.7^years). Paid up front after year 14. No further extensions. Indexed to inflation.

That's not entirely in the public domain. I release stuff under many licenses, as well as putting them in the public domain. I usually have a very clear idea of what I choose to do and why I do it. And my views have certainly evolved in the past 14 years since that statement was initially attached to that website. Besides, people have made (and continue to make) fair use of code and images published on that site.

Ah, I see. You are too myopic to see the myriad alternatives. if you can only see a world of "intellectual property" then the free exchange of ideas may have no meaning to you. People who want to use the code in "intellectual property" may have a problem. The rest of us do not.

Do I want to go back to those days? Absolutely. Having that music in the public domain is part of cultural wealth of the United States. The copyright of performances of white artists playing music put in the public domain by black musicians and songwriters did not remove that music from the public domain. We are all wealthier together for the gift those artists gave us. Disney does the same thing with Mother Goose, Bros Grimm, HCA, etc. Those works are all still in the public domain. You are free to copy them and adapt the original stories.

Were there inequities? Sure. But I would argue that the we are paying a much heavier cost today. Besides, the music industry has found new and improved ways to rape and pillage the artists they purport to represent. The poor and uneducated will always be at a disadvantage. No one can argue that the IP regime we have today is a just system. Might still makes right. Whoever can afford the most lawyers wins.

We now have a place to easily and instantly publish ideas which provides permanent proof of what is in the public domain. Let's use it.

Who cares?!? Copying the code and removing the statement "this code is in the public domain" does not remove the code from the public domain.

Not at all. The number of copyrighted works would plummet to acceptable levels (with the value of ideas being added to the public domain returning to normal, healthy levels), rather than the copyright pandemic we are currently experiencing. The only thing deserving of copyright protection are those things that the creator deems valuable enough to seek copyright protection. And then we could do interesting things like exponentially scale the cost of registration based on the duration the author wishes to maintain their monopoly on the work.

Personally, this is why I feel that the recent invention of the "automatic copyright" grant is an epic fail. By default all published works should be in the public domain. Only those that are explicitly marked by the author with a copyright and a license should be protected.

Then why not make it public domain? Why attach a license at all?

New, from Mabeline.

System APIs: Software Architects, not coding monkeys.

Feature Set and Release Schedule: Managers

UI: Users (see also "people whining about it on the interwebs") and engineers (with minor help from UI/UX "experts")

Advertising: Marketing

Helpdesk,

I need help logging in. I have a migraine and can't get my passthought right. Can you send up two aspirin tablets.

Thanks