The fact that a handful of people said that about TV has what to say about this argument? The technologies aren't even remotely similar. Also, unlike with TV, we are already seeing that the educational possibilities are beginning to emerge on their own. It's not ivory tower speak. It's happening.
Posting content to the internet is basically free and mostly unregulated. The content is available on demand. The internet also provides a means for feedback, chatting, and community discussions about the content to instantly spring up.
Broadcasting on the airwaves is regulated by governmental monopolies and is a scarce commodity. It is regulated, censored, and horribly expensive. No ability for feedback loops or interaction.
The internet reduces the cost of transmitting, storing, and replicating all forms of information to almost zero. Education is mainly a form of information. That is why it will become a tool of education. Even if only 0.1% are interested in using it that way, it will provide that function.
I see a lot of posts that basically point out that:
1: This won't take the place of real fact to face interaction.
2: You still won't get the benefit of having a degree.
3: The lectures really aren't complete without the notes.
4: This will probably mainly benefit people taking the class.
All those points are true for now. But they miss the real point. This is the start of a new, disruptive technology. In time there will be massess of these courses available and their will be much more comprehensive infrastructures around providing them than we have now. This is just a hint of what is to come.
For those who claim that books do just fine, my answer is no they don't. They are static, they do not convey certain types of information well, and people are geared to learn from people. While not truly the same as true face to face instruction, this approach is much closer, and complements reading very well.
In other words, education is on a path to becoming mostly or wholly free, of high quality, and disconnected from time, place, circumstances, and social class. This is part of a larger process of the internet becoming not just an engine for entertainment and commercial sales. It is starting to becoming an engine for moving high density, high quality information around, namely knowledge.
That's a really narrow view on your part. There are a lot of people who would love to get an education. But they can't afford it. Or they can't fit it into a schedule because they need to work strange hours to feed thier kids. Or they live somewhere where a college isn't handy. Or, or, or...
This is the start of education for the masses. Books are nice, but they don't convey enough information of certain types. The lectures will help go beyond that. Even barely literate people will be able to use these to learn. It will also be a huge boon to people with dyslexia and other issues. Even more important is the time-shifting aspect. Learn when you have time. Thanks to this trend a lot of people who might not have otherwise been able to get access to this type of education will now be able to do so. In time they'll probably be able to take tests as well and for very little money get a degree at their own pace and within the needs of their own life.
The exciting thing about this is that it will actually allow the internet to do something really great. Provide effective, free, and high quality education to ANYONE who can get a computer and an internet connection. Which is rapidly becoming almost everybody in the world.
As a followup to my own post, before people point out that ISPs are not considered common carriers in America, let me say that that makes my point. They should be considered common carriers. The fact that they aren't is silly and an indication of just how badly the government wants to filter, monitor, and control the internet.
The legal ramification is that the concept of 'common carrier' is dying. Laws only mean anything if they are upheld, and the common carrier laws will not be upheld by the state and federal authorites because the federal government wants filtering and regulation of the internet.
AT&T knows this and is acting just as if those laws did not exist becuase they know that they will not be enforced against them. They aided the NSA after all. AT&T can no longer be thought of as a company in a free market. They are now effectively a governmental entity.
How much testing did they do to confirm this? Did they perform various tests on various lengths of exposure? How about the effects on the eyes and the testes? Those are both very exposed. How about testing the long-term effects of having been exposed for several minutes? Did they expose people and see if they have a higher rate of cancer or sterility or other factors? It will be used for crowd control, so have they tested it's effects on young children? How about infants and pregnant women?
They're talking out of thier ass on this when they talk about the injuries. The nature of this weapon is horrendous enough that it's impossible to do due dilligence testing on it. We'll learn of it's horrible side effects after it goes into large scale use.
They note in the article that they don't want this called a 'ray gun'. They don't want it thought of as a directed energy weapon, or DEW. The real problem with this weapon is that it is almost certainly illegal under the Geneva Convention. A discussion of energy weapons and the GC can be found here.
As to permanent damage, what about when it is used for an extended time? This could happen when it is used for torture, which it will be, or when used to cover a large area and people cannot escape and are trapped in the agony zone or cannot move for some reason. I suspect people with go insane, tear themselves apart, and have other horrendous self-inflicted injuries if they cannot get out of it's path in a certain amount of time.
I'm not the original poster, but I found this debate interesting so I'm adding my $.02 in.
It all boils down to whethor or not copyright is a natural or legal right. The framers of the Constitution felt it was not only NOT a natural right, but that it was in fact a violation of natural rights. I agree with them. However they felt it was a necessary evil for society, so they reluctantly included provisions for copyright into the Constitution, but not into the Bill of Rights section. I also agree with them on this.
The problem with copyright and why it cannot be a Natural Right is that it is proactively coercive against everyone else's natural rights. Here I am speaking of your right to use and own the contents of your own mind. To be able to use the contents of my own mind is about as basic as it gets. If I hear a song somewhere and I remember that song, then I cannot play it, hum it, recreate it, or do as I see fit with what has now become knowledge in my head. I did not enter into a contract or agreement to give up this right. I am forced by the power of guns to abide by it. (That is probably what the other poster meant by 'subsidy' though I disagree with his terminology.)
Because copyright actually allows the government to apply the threat of force against people to prevent them using their knowledge and information, it is very dangerous. It is an area of the Constitution that trumps the First Amendment and the Framers were very reluctant to include it. They finally did so for they felt it was a necessary evil, but they tried to keep it very limited in scope. It only applied to sheet music, maps, and a few other very specific things. It did NOT apply to derivitive works. I could make a play based on a book for example and that would not violate copyright. It was also for a very limited time.
Those restrictions have all been removed. Copyright now applies to almost everything and in virtual perpetuity. It has exploded well beyond the bounds of what is moral and right and it is becoming the sword to destroy freedom. This will only become worse over time becuase now that the cost to 'copy' information is now effectively zero then the only way to enforce copyright is with more stringent laws, more surveilence, and more powers. In effect it is becoming such that enforcing copyright as it exists and as it is being expanded to will require a police state.
Personally, I think that if copyright were limited in both scope and duration that it is better for society. I am also a content producer and I am currently writing a book, and it will be copyrighted. However copyright laws have gotten so out of hand that I no longer feel that anyone is morally bound to follow them. Copyright law has crossed the line from a necessary evil to a tool that will do great harm to our society and to our freedoms if it is not reigned in soon.
We all know that SCO did a lot of shady, probably illegal activities. IMO these guys are getting as far away as they can while the getting is still good. Expect to see some of them giving testimony aginst SCO in future legal proceedings.
Here's some of the math as I see it. Hopefully my math is correct.
America has 9.6 million square kilometers of land. That converts to 960,000,000 hecatres. Jatropha produces 1,892 liters per hecatre. That means it would produce a theoretical 1,816,320,000,000 litres of fuel. 1.8 trillion litres of fuel. That's a little over 3x our current consumption rate, not about equal. Still not great though. I don't see biofuel being more than a niche supplier.
Pretty much. As funny as it sounds, both are bad, at least if they represent large scale trends. Option one means America's labor force is not competitive. The other means that the other countries now have first world economies, infrastructure, and most importantly that the dollar has become so weak that American labor is now cheap.
This is not a case of saying all news is bad news. These two items do not represent the only options. Both are flip-sides of America now being a bad place for capital investment. You can thank our massive beucracies, regulations, byzantine and high tax codes, and increasing Statist tendancies for that. Most of the capital investment is being put into foreign markets now because it can be grown more rapidly due to freer markets and less taxation. The engines of the global economy are less and less centered in the U.S. We are looking at becoming a low-wage work farm for the new economic powerhouses building up around the world. We'll all have jobs, just not good ones.
The fact is that he probably did know that his actions would cause consternation. He probably didn't expect to get arrested but he probably wasn't totally put out by it, and so what? A lot of people have died so we can have some measure of freedom. Allowing your rights to be trampled in the name of 'harmony and forgiveness' is nothing more than a cowardly betrayal of our country, our history, those who have sacrificed, and of ourselves. I don't care if he was not nice to them when they asked him to open his bag, produce his license, and what-not. They should never have asked him to do those things in the first place and he should most certainly never have been arrested.
So called 'peace and harmony' that you mention that is built on models of obsequence to power, even if it is couched in politeness, is not true peace and harmony. It is the model of rule by power, fear and intimidation. Our Constitution springs from the philosophical foundation of Natural Law. The peace and harmony of our nation must first come from a shared willingness to stand up for that. Those who violate people's rights - in this case the CC employees and the police officer who abused his position - are the ones who are disturbing the peace and harmony of the nation, not the individual who resists having his rights abused.
As for being upset that tax payer dollars will be lost because somebody's rights were violated, that is even more senseless to me. There are in my mind few other things more appropriate for tax payer dollars to be spent on than upholding the integrity of our rights. It's the core reason to even have a judiciary. If you aren't willing to spend money on protecting and safeguarding the rights of the people then you don't stand for anything of real importance.
Next killer features from Apple are coming out in October. At the rate that Microsoft is 'innovating' it will take them five to ten years just to get the next major OS out, let alone catch up to OS X.
For the record, I'm both an MCSD and MCSE and I was nearly an MCT as well. My Microsoft creds are among the best you will ever find. Let me now say that you don't know what you are talking about. It doesn't matter how many service packs Microsoft releases for Vista. The Windows API, the registry, security, and the underlying Windows architecture are all obsolete and in many places busted. They can't just 'fix' these problems because they are part of the whole Windows paradigm. Applications written to Windows rely on them and so Microsoft cannot change of fix them without totally breaking all the programs written for their operating systems. They can never catch up to OS X with Vista because Vista is not a solid enough foundation for them to do so with. You are not going to see history repeat itself. Microsoft is in deep trouble here because they let their Windows and Office code bases basically rot for ten years and now both are looking tired. This isn't something that can be fixed quickly. It will take Microsoft years to retool and get back on the right track, and time is no longer on their side.
You must be pretty young if you rate 1982 as not 'new'. The fact that copyright infringement is being re-classified again and again over time as a more and more heinous crime is proof that our system of government is being corrupted and debased for the benefit of corporations who no longer wish a free market, but instead wish for a Fascist state where government uses force of arms to protect the larger corporations and give them money.
As for protecting rights, I'm all for that. However here you have misplaced what the term 'Right' means and whose rights are being violated. If I hear a song then that song is now a part of my consciousness. I might have heard it on the radio, I might have heard it being sung by someone else, I might have heard it any one an infinite number of ways. In most cases I never entered into a contract saying that I would never sing that song myself. Along comes some people who say that if I sing this song then I will, by force of arms, have money, liberty, and possibly even my life stripped from me. In short something that has become a part of my very self is not owned by me.
To be truly defined as a 'Right', as per Natural Law, a right cannot coerce another. I cannot say that because I have a right to live and pursue happiness that I have a right to kill you because you have food or more money that I do and I will live better and be happier with what you have. Copyright cannot be a 'Right' because it is actively coercive. You coerce me to not engage in an activity without any say-so or agreement on my part. That is the opposite of a 'Right', that is instead unjustified force, and it is why the Founding Fathers were so wary of 'copyright' and why the argued about having it at all. In the end they decided that it was a necessary evil, but they did their best to limit because they recognized that it is dangerous.
Even if you don't believe in Natural Law and the philosophy that went into the Constitution, understand that copyright is supposed to be for a reasonably limited duration. That social contract, written into the Constitution, has in my opinion been broken. I'm willing to live with the compromise of copyright law because it does serve a useful purpose, but only if it is for a very limited period of time. Near indefinite copyright durations makes thought crime a reality and is an avenue to a totalitarian state. Since copyright holders are pushing copyright to the absurd extremes, if I must choose between no copyright at all for anybody or living in a police state, then the choice is easy for me. Copyright holders gave up whatever standing they might have had when they decided to expand it beyond any reasonable bounds. At that point 'society' is not protecting itself from harm as you say by protecting copyright. It is instead turned into an oppressor and destroyer of life and liberty.
Google is trying to get into the office suite application space. Apple is moving there as well. The just released IWork 08 now includes a very nice spreadsheet program for example. Now Adobe declares that they are wanting to create an office suite program. All these companies would not be doing this at basically the same time if they didn't think that the time to tackle Microsoft in this area isn't coming soon.
What I'm saying is that the timing is not coincidental. Office is getting long in the tooth and Microsoft does not seem to be ready to make a serious rewrite of it. I think these companies have all decided that the time to begin to attack Office is near and they're gearing up to fight Microsoft on the productivity software front. I think we're about to enter a new era productivity software application wars.
I deem "vom*t" an indecent word. Please change your screen name. Acceptable replacements include "regurgitate" and "disgorge". Please note that "r*tch", "upch*ck", "sp*w", and "h*rl" are also indecent and not acceptable. In fact one of the criteria is that the replacement word be at least six characters long and not sound nasty. Short, explosive words are indecent, long flowery ones are OK, but only if someone of authority like me has examined them and given them a stamp of approval.
Once again MS announces it is going to get into the business of networked services. Good luck with that. First the announce that they will release computers in India. That sounds like they are chasing Apple and aiming to become their own OEM like Apple is. Except that unlike Apple they don't have someone like Jobs to manage the intricate details needed for Apple's famed integration and user experience to work. Now they want to get into being an ASP. Again. Which sounds like they want to be like Google. Except that unlike Google they don't have massive server farms or other infrastructure, and their services will probably be linked to Windows only programs.
In short, Microsoft can no longer be like Microsoft since they are losing their lock on the market. However they don't have a plan to become anything new, at least not at a scale that can support them at their current burn rates. All they can do is poorly mimic other company's strategies and business models. That doesn't strike me as a winning strategy. To me this is more signs that MS is collapsing, and over the next five years it will become apparent to everyone that it is doing so.
The FSF is a slightly different bag IMO. They aren't going to sell their copyrights. If they do then they are finished as an organization. Unlike cases like Mr. Sweet, where you only needed to buy off an individual, with the FSF you would need to buy off an entire entity whose existence is over the moment they do this. So the payout for that to even be thinkable would have to be really huge. Still I would show caution.
The idea that you need a point man with enough ownership that they can assert the rights to the code to protect and sue on it's behalf has merit. I think the answer might be to give up pieces of your copyright to one person or group, but not the whole thing. Also, there should be a standardized contract that open source people use that guarantees that the 'point man' is limited in what they can do. This would allow the best of both worlds. One person or organization would own enough of the code to take legal action on it's behalf, but the rights of the contributers would be protected.
I'm getting very tired of hearing about groups not just going after responsible parties, but anybody connected, even in secondary ways, to the activities. Whenever you see that kind of behavior, you know there are ulterior motives behind it. This behavior can be more damaging to society than the original fraud. It results in massive burdens on companies, deep regulations, intricate and gameable legal systems, higher prices, barriers to entry for new companies, and finally corruption and and power through selective enforcement.
If a society is interested in remaining healthy and prosperous, groups going after innocent parties like this need to be outright censored (if private) or disbanded (if governmental) or completely overhauled with the top people fired. They are actively doing more harm than good and should be treated like the social cancers they are.
The real issue for open source development I see was that Sweet violated an implicit understanding. Everyone transferred their copyrights to him, but there was the idea that the project was open source. How many of those developers would have done the work if they knew or thought Sweet would do this? I bet many of them would not have contributed. By giving up their copyright they lost their entire stake in the matter.
The real lesson here is that the idea that the developers should pool their copyrights into one person is flawed. That person can then cash out. The get all the profits for everyone else's work. The other developers lose out on both getting a piece of the pie if they would have wanted that, and they lose out in the moral sense in that if they didn't want their code to suddenly become part of a closed source project, they have no say in it anymore.
I think that in the future open source developers should be more cautious about giving away their copyrights. Also, I hope that open source developers will start forking projects that are being developed by companies and groups that require that the copyright be transferred.
I consider science news as or more important than technology, especially to nerds. What do you think technology is based on? Testimony about the Republican animosity toward the sciences is, IMO, very important news and should meet the criteria of 'News for nerds. Stuff that matters' for anybody who thinks of themselves as a nerd. I have typically voted Republican, but this desire on the Republican party to disown science is very troubling to me. It is a hallmark of dictatorial regimes to undermine science for the purposes of the state.
Slashdot Mirror
Posting content to the internet is basically free and mostly unregulated. The content is available on demand. The internet also provides a means for feedback, chatting, and community discussions about the content to instantly spring up.
Broadcasting on the airwaves is regulated by governmental monopolies and is a scarce commodity. It is regulated, censored, and horribly expensive. No ability for feedback loops or interaction.
The internet reduces the cost of transmitting, storing, and replicating all forms of information to almost zero. Education is mainly a form of information. That is why it will become a tool of education. Even if only 0.1% are interested in using it that way, it will provide that function.
1: This won't take the place of real fact to face interaction.
2: You still won't get the benefit of having a degree.
3: The lectures really aren't complete without the notes.
4: This will probably mainly benefit people taking the class.
All those points are true for now. But they miss the real point. This is the start of a new, disruptive technology. In time there will be massess of these courses available and their will be much more comprehensive infrastructures around providing them than we have now. This is just a hint of what is to come.
For those who claim that books do just fine, my answer is no they don't. They are static, they do not convey certain types of information well, and people are geared to learn from people. While not truly the same as true face to face instruction, this approach is much closer, and complements reading very well.
In other words, education is on a path to becoming mostly or wholly free, of high quality, and disconnected from time, place, circumstances, and social class. This is part of a larger process of the internet becoming not just an engine for entertainment and commercial sales. It is starting to becoming an engine for moving high density, high quality information around, namely knowledge.
This is the start of education for the masses. Books are nice, but they don't convey enough information of certain types. The lectures will help go beyond that. Even barely literate people will be able to use these to learn. It will also be a huge boon to people with dyslexia and other issues. Even more important is the time-shifting aspect. Learn when you have time. Thanks to this trend a lot of people who might not have otherwise been able to get access to this type of education will now be able to do so. In time they'll probably be able to take tests as well and for very little money get a degree at their own pace and within the needs of their own life.
The exciting thing about this is that it will actually allow the internet to do something really great. Provide effective, free, and high quality education to ANYONE who can get a computer and an internet connection. Which is rapidly becoming almost everybody in the world.
That would be sick and wrong. However I plan on using the Wiimote to stab/strangle/maim bitmaps/sprites/pixels.
My opinion of Gartner is so low that I can only assume that through some miracle Open Source will be discarded as a bad idea by 2011.
As a followup to my own post, before people point out that ISPs are not considered common carriers in America, let me say that that makes my point. They should be considered common carriers. The fact that they aren't is silly and an indication of just how badly the government wants to filter, monitor, and control the internet.
AT&T knows this and is acting just as if those laws did not exist becuase they know that they will not be enforced against them. They aided the NSA after all. AT&T can no longer be thought of as a company in a free market. They are now effectively a governmental entity.
They're talking out of thier ass on this when they talk about the injuries. The nature of this weapon is horrendous enough that it's impossible to do due dilligence testing on it. We'll learn of it's horrible side effects after it goes into large scale use.
As to permanent damage, what about when it is used for an extended time? This could happen when it is used for torture, which it will be, or when used to cover a large area and people cannot escape and are trapped in the agony zone or cannot move for some reason. I suspect people with go insane, tear themselves apart, and have other horrendous self-inflicted injuries if they cannot get out of it's path in a certain amount of time.
Perhaps necessary was too strong of a word. They thought it's benefits probably outweighed it's problems. However these between Jefferson and Madison clearly show they were very interested in copyright from a philosophical point of view. It wasn't just put into the Constitution to make the law standardized. They considered actually banning copyright and instead adding to the Bill of Rights the idea that such monopolies would be illegal.
It all boils down to whethor or not copyright is a natural or legal right. The framers of the Constitution felt it was not only NOT a natural right, but that it was in fact a violation of natural rights. I agree with them. However they felt it was a necessary evil for society, so they reluctantly included provisions for copyright into the Constitution, but not into the Bill of Rights section. I also agree with them on this.
The problem with copyright and why it cannot be a Natural Right is that it is proactively coercive against everyone else's natural rights. Here I am speaking of your right to use and own the contents of your own mind. To be able to use the contents of my own mind is about as basic as it gets. If I hear a song somewhere and I remember that song, then I cannot play it, hum it, recreate it, or do as I see fit with what has now become knowledge in my head. I did not enter into a contract or agreement to give up this right. I am forced by the power of guns to abide by it. (That is probably what the other poster meant by 'subsidy' though I disagree with his terminology.)
Because copyright actually allows the government to apply the threat of force against people to prevent them using their knowledge and information, it is very dangerous. It is an area of the Constitution that trumps the First Amendment and the Framers were very reluctant to include it. They finally did so for they felt it was a necessary evil, but they tried to keep it very limited in scope. It only applied to sheet music, maps, and a few other very specific things. It did NOT apply to derivitive works. I could make a play based on a book for example and that would not violate copyright. It was also for a very limited time.
Those restrictions have all been removed. Copyright now applies to almost everything and in virtual perpetuity. It has exploded well beyond the bounds of what is moral and right and it is becoming the sword to destroy freedom. This will only become worse over time becuase now that the cost to 'copy' information is now effectively zero then the only way to enforce copyright is with more stringent laws, more surveilence, and more powers. In effect it is becoming such that enforcing copyright as it exists and as it is being expanded to will require a police state.
Personally, I think that if copyright were limited in both scope and duration that it is better for society. I am also a content producer and I am currently writing a book, and it will be copyrighted. However copyright laws have gotten so out of hand that I no longer feel that anyone is morally bound to follow them. Copyright law has crossed the line from a necessary evil to a tool that will do great harm to our society and to our freedoms if it is not reigned in soon.
Here is the link.
We all know that SCO did a lot of shady, probably illegal activities. IMO these guys are getting as far away as they can while the getting is still good. Expect to see some of them giving testimony aginst SCO in future legal proceedings.
America has 9.6 million square kilometers of land. That converts to 960,000,000 hecatres. Jatropha produces 1,892 liters per hecatre. That means it would produce a theoretical 1,816,320,000,000 litres of fuel. 1.8 trillion litres of fuel. That's a little over 3x our current consumption rate, not about equal. Still not great though. I don't see biofuel being more than a niche supplier.
This is not a case of saying all news is bad news. These two items do not represent the only options. Both are flip-sides of America now being a bad place for capital investment. You can thank our massive beucracies, regulations, byzantine and high tax codes, and increasing Statist tendancies for that. Most of the capital investment is being put into foreign markets now because it can be grown more rapidly due to freer markets and less taxation. The engines of the global economy are less and less centered in the U.S. We are looking at becoming a low-wage work farm for the new economic powerhouses building up around the world. We'll all have jobs, just not good ones.
So called 'peace and harmony' that you mention that is built on models of obsequence to power, even if it is couched in politeness, is not true peace and harmony. It is the model of rule by power, fear and intimidation. Our Constitution springs from the philosophical foundation of Natural Law. The peace and harmony of our nation must first come from a shared willingness to stand up for that. Those who violate people's rights - in this case the CC employees and the police officer who abused his position - are the ones who are disturbing the peace and harmony of the nation, not the individual who resists having his rights abused.
As for being upset that tax payer dollars will be lost because somebody's rights were violated, that is even more senseless to me. There are in my mind few other things more appropriate for tax payer dollars to be spent on than upholding the integrity of our rights. It's the core reason to even have a judiciary. If you aren't willing to spend money on protecting and safeguarding the rights of the people then you don't stand for anything of real importance.
For the record, I'm both an MCSD and MCSE and I was nearly an MCT as well. My Microsoft creds are among the best you will ever find. Let me now say that you don't know what you are talking about. It doesn't matter how many service packs Microsoft releases for Vista. The Windows API, the registry, security, and the underlying Windows architecture are all obsolete and in many places busted. They can't just 'fix' these problems because they are part of the whole Windows paradigm. Applications written to Windows rely on them and so Microsoft cannot change of fix them without totally breaking all the programs written for their operating systems. They can never catch up to OS X with Vista because Vista is not a solid enough foundation for them to do so with. You are not going to see history repeat itself. Microsoft is in deep trouble here because they let their Windows and Office code bases basically rot for ten years and now both are looking tired. This isn't something that can be fixed quickly. It will take Microsoft years to retool and get back on the right track, and time is no longer on their side.
As for protecting rights, I'm all for that. However here you have misplaced what the term 'Right' means and whose rights are being violated. If I hear a song then that song is now a part of my consciousness. I might have heard it on the radio, I might have heard it being sung by someone else, I might have heard it any one an infinite number of ways. In most cases I never entered into a contract saying that I would never sing that song myself. Along comes some people who say that if I sing this song then I will, by force of arms, have money, liberty, and possibly even my life stripped from me. In short something that has become a part of my very self is not owned by me.
To be truly defined as a 'Right', as per Natural Law, a right cannot coerce another. I cannot say that because I have a right to live and pursue happiness that I have a right to kill you because you have food or more money that I do and I will live better and be happier with what you have. Copyright cannot be a 'Right' because it is actively coercive. You coerce me to not engage in an activity without any say-so or agreement on my part. That is the opposite of a 'Right', that is instead unjustified force, and it is why the Founding Fathers were so wary of 'copyright' and why the argued about having it at all. In the end they decided that it was a necessary evil, but they did their best to limit because they recognized that it is dangerous.
Even if you don't believe in Natural Law and the philosophy that went into the Constitution, understand that copyright is supposed to be for a reasonably limited duration. That social contract, written into the Constitution, has in my opinion been broken. I'm willing to live with the compromise of copyright law because it does serve a useful purpose, but only if it is for a very limited period of time. Near indefinite copyright durations makes thought crime a reality and is an avenue to a totalitarian state. Since copyright holders are pushing copyright to the absurd extremes, if I must choose between no copyright at all for anybody or living in a police state, then the choice is easy for me. Copyright holders gave up whatever standing they might have had when they decided to expand it beyond any reasonable bounds. At that point 'society' is not protecting itself from harm as you say by protecting copyright. It is instead turned into an oppressor and destroyer of life and liberty.
What I'm saying is that the timing is not coincidental. Office is getting long in the tooth and Microsoft does not seem to be ready to make a serious rewrite of it. I think these companies have all decided that the time to begin to attack Office is near and they're gearing up to fight Microsoft on the productivity software front. I think we're about to enter a new era productivity software application wars.
I deem "vom*t" an indecent word. Please change your screen name. Acceptable replacements include "regurgitate" and "disgorge". Please note that "r*tch", "upch*ck", "sp*w", and "h*rl" are also indecent and not acceptable. In fact one of the criteria is that the replacement word be at least six characters long and not sound nasty. Short, explosive words are indecent, long flowery ones are OK, but only if someone of authority like me has examined them and given them a stamp of approval.
In short, Microsoft can no longer be like Microsoft since they are losing their lock on the market. However they don't have a plan to become anything new, at least not at a scale that can support them at their current burn rates. All they can do is poorly mimic other company's strategies and business models. That doesn't strike me as a winning strategy. To me this is more signs that MS is collapsing, and over the next five years it will become apparent to everyone that it is doing so.
The idea that you need a point man with enough ownership that they can assert the rights to the code to protect and sue on it's behalf has merit. I think the answer might be to give up pieces of your copyright to one person or group, but not the whole thing. Also, there should be a standardized contract that open source people use that guarantees that the 'point man' is limited in what they can do. This would allow the best of both worlds. One person or organization would own enough of the code to take legal action on it's behalf, but the rights of the contributers would be protected.
If a society is interested in remaining healthy and prosperous, groups going after innocent parties like this need to be outright censored (if private) or disbanded (if governmental) or completely overhauled with the top people fired. They are actively doing more harm than good and should be treated like the social cancers they are.
The real lesson here is that the idea that the developers should pool their copyrights into one person is flawed. That person can then cash out. The get all the profits for everyone else's work. The other developers lose out on both getting a piece of the pie if they would have wanted that, and they lose out in the moral sense in that if they didn't want their code to suddenly become part of a closed source project, they have no say in it anymore.
I think that in the future open source developers should be more cautious about giving away their copyrights. Also, I hope that open source developers will start forking projects that are being developed by companies and groups that require that the copyright be transferred.
I consider science news as or more important than technology, especially to nerds. What do you think technology is based on? Testimony about the Republican animosity toward the sciences is, IMO, very important news and should meet the criteria of 'News for nerds. Stuff that matters' for anybody who thinks of themselves as a nerd. I have typically voted Republican, but this desire on the Republican party to disown science is very troubling to me. It is a hallmark of dictatorial regimes to undermine science for the purposes of the state.