og.

Architects such as myself who now find themselves working on the Dark Side- anything that has do do with technology.  It is deffiitely on the axis of evil where most architects are concerned.  And I can certainly understand why this is the case.  Especially when we see the destructive force of a monopolist  (Autodesk in this case) that had completely destroyed the possibilities for technology in our industry.

(kewl- this is my first post with a build in shortcut- in this case the quoted windley is replaced by 'Windleys Enterprise Computing Weblog' above.  This will make is much easier to do lots of high value hyperlinking, including proper attribution of web posts.)

mass".  Better yet, "The process should be greenhouse-gas neutral," study co-author Randy Cortright says. "Carbon dioxide is produced as a byproduct, but the plant biomass grown for hydrogen production will fix and store the carbon dioxide produced the previous year."

eblog post Lawrence Lessig.

My vote is that we return to our roots:  14 years of copyright protection.  PERIOD.  No extensions for anyone or anything.  I feel that the framers got it right in purely human terms- say 4 or 5 copyright protection periods during the average human life- not a perpetual right to monopolize for the life of a corporation!

And yes, I beleive this should include the source of software.  And here is why.   In my business, Architecture- what we produce is a physical artifact- a building or environment.  It is there for all to see, to understand, to analyse; perhaps they are even fortunate enought to watch it come into existence during the process of construction.  Our documents of service, the drawings and specifications are the only thing that we can copyright- and guess what?  We give them away!  That is right.  They do not actually hold any value.

You see, the value is in our knowing what to do and how to do it!  We are paid for the very human skill of creating!  And for that we absolutley depend upon the free flow of ideas within our entire culture!  We RIP MIX and BURN the architectural memeplex from the piramids to the space station.  Imagine if the copyright protections for ideas that the entertainment industry (and to a degree, the software industry) were possible in the building industry.  We could patent our innovative designs for labroatorys, public entry spaces, waterproof detailing, and then charge a royalty for each and every use!

My view is that you have only one thing- you yourself.  Your particular and unique way of integrating what you have taken from the world and are now giving back to the world.  I am an old fan of MORE.  I say put the code into the public domain- let students learn what they can from the example.  What can never be patented, and what can only be learned from close apprenticeship, is the process of thought and understanding that led Dave Weiner to create MORE in the first place.  And the whole idea of limited copyright is to encourage the free flow of ideas and creativity within our culture for the benefit of all.  Those who fear the expiration of copyright live in fear of the expration of their own creativity.  Ironically, it is the continuance of copyright which actually causes the expiration of creativity.  Yes, we have crossed a slippery slope, and we are sliding downhill quickly.  Can we make it back across this slippery slope?  (The answer is only with a complete revolution in the human mind... but that is a different story.)