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

+1

Slashdot has a knack for expiring mod points right when they are most needed.

Wait -- how much of your Internet bill goes to the content providers?

Ballmer? That's not what I heard. According to inside sources, Billy Gates secretly adopted Torvalds. (How do you think he got into this country so easily?) Gates needs a someone with real geek cred to take over as Chairman when he fully retires. He has been grooming Torvalds for this role outside the MS spotlight. Torvalds stands to inherit Gates' fortune and company. His constant criticism of the company is due to him worrying about the shape it will be in when he is finally allowed to take over. Anyone at MSFT that wants a job when that happens better heed his warnings.

You die and find out this was a class project; there one god per boson. What do you say? "Sorry Z?"

That's how I begin my prayers to the internet gods, before hitting "Search".

The tactic is to create a loss leader. Drive the competition out of the market. Then reap the rewards of having a monopoly on a necessary product. Bonus points for having the government help you do it.

All those weather maps that you get for free because the government funds that satellites? The cloud maps that are shown on TV, your WeatherBug app, etc? Not only is the government going to pay, but they are not going to be allowed to freely redistribute. Everyone now pays multiple times for the same thing that we all paid for together. They are going to collect fees from The Weather Channel, CNN, every TV channel in the world (if they still want to report on US weather), each pay an additional fee. TINSTAAFL.

When it comes time to re-license the data, when the US has no more weather satellites, the USAF, USN, USCG, US Army, NOAA, NCAR, NWS, USDA, etc. will each have to license the weather data independently. Stock holders will rejoice. And the taxpayer gets fleeced again.