I agree. MFWAL (My father was a lawyer) and he was paid to defend people, whether what they did was right or wrong...and he was very good at his job. So if a lawyer is paid to argue that up is down and black is white, that the lawyer will do.
My father didn't always win (USUALLY, but not always) and I can remember him talking to a con in prison on the phone...very pleasant, cordial, helpful, polite. I questioned him about why he was so nice to the guy, who really was "not a nice person". His reply..."Everybody else is beating up on him in there, somebody should be good to him."
Not all lawyers are evil. That said, I don't think I could do it for a living.

I actually CAN'T argue with his interpretation, since IANAL. He contends that an automobile is sculpture. There is, as I understand it, a large body of law that would say that it is not. I could argue that there is more of a correlation between fashion and the styling of automobiles...fashion which is also not copyrightable for some of the same reasons.
I DO understand copyright, in so far as it affects my life as a writer of software (it does) but in this case, the bat-mo-people are arguing trademark with a crossover into copyright and derivative works.
I suppose I could have just said, "No, your interpretation is probably wrong", but this is /.

An art student AND a lawyer...that is not a combination you see every day.

You got in an argument with your boss? About weather? And you want to keep this job? If the latter, I'd figure out a way to prove your boss right and then suck up. Or you can just be right and hungry. Just a thought.

I wonder if GitHub couldn't clear this up by picking a fairly restrictive license (maybe good for personal use, but not for commercial) and make that the default (as opposed to no license, or a very vague one as we see now).
Then if I wanted things looser, I could pick from other licenses, if I wanted things tighter, I could pay the money for the private repositories (again, this is what I do). The problem is that to make things private costs money...not a LOT of money, but some. But it occurs to me that the intent of making you allow people to download and fork would be to make your code available, not necessarily to enrich the downloaders, but in the spirit of knowledge sharing.
So a default "personal use" license, but no commercial use required on the free GitHub seems like a reasonable compromise...and more explicit than the current situation.
I doubt they'll be calling to ask my opinion, but there it is.

But can she program A Happy Vertical People Transporter?
http://hitchhikersguidetoearth.wikia.com/wiki/Sirius_Cybernetics_Corporation

Agreed and I understood that (which is why I have some private repositories). It's the fork part that is "interesting" from a copyright standpoint. What does that really mean, legally (I know what it means technically)? I guess that's why the lawyers continue to do what they do.

Github is a great place to store your repository. It is ALSO a great place to share code with people you want to work with who may or may not be really conversant with git.
Github doesn't claim to provide a repository for open source software...just a place to store repositories which you (as an author) may or may not choose to attach a license to. But that doesn't remove the responsibility of the copier to determine what the license on that software may be. If I copy anything, I need to know if I have the right (copy right) to do that. The onus is and always has been on the copier. That said, the copyright owner is the one who will follow up with violations.
Just because I choose to use github to store my repositories (and, in my case, I use and pay for private repositories for those things that I don't want to share) does not mean that I want everyone in the world to download and use my stuff. I'm an idiot if I am surprised when people DO use my stuff that I make publicly available, but without an explicit license allowing use of my code, it is protected in the US by copyright laws as soon as I write it...and IANAL.
Github is just a great service for those of us who don't want to set up our own repository. They are not a guarantor of free software, nor a nanny to protect me.

Actually I DO and did know the meaning of eponymous...and I was stretching it with the language.
Assad (the person for whom the war is named ... eponymous) = A Sad war.
I didn't say it was a good and/or especially clever stretch, but I certainly didn't think that eponymous meant sad...that would be dolorous.

Actually I thought he meant it was "A Sad" fight...which would make eponymous usage correct, although the spelling suspect.
But then I tend to give people the benefit...

You can get sent to jail for experimenting on orphans? Oh bother.

Backing up barefoot_professor on this. Monolithic domes can stand up to almost anything and are reasonably priced to construct. Now that I am living within an hour of the factory, I am thinking about taking one of their courses in dome construction...or may just buy some land and have them put one up. The only problem...how do you hide the dust bunnys in the corner?

And anyone reading "Makers" will realize how effective the DRM will be. Sigh...doncha wish they'd just give up on this kind of thing.

A tablet will probably do most of what you want in a small enough form factor. That said, I've been looking into building a computer such as you describe but more to get great performance, knowing that I will have a screen and keyboard at the other end. I work for an overseas company. When I get there I have an office. When I am at home I have an office. But I don't like the performance on my laptop, so I was looking into building a small box that has SSD drive for boot, lots of RAM, good sized HD..knowing that would have a screen on the other end. The idea isn't as far fetched as some are indicating. In the pre-9/11 days I used to travel with a full computer/keyboard/monitor that fit into a roll-on bag. That's back when laptops were VERY expensive to get any performance. I did get to have lots of nice conversations with the security guys, but I'm not sure it'd be taken as well now.