Ive been thinking about how to post this, and I'm not quite sure where Im trying to go with it, but here we go.

What are other monks feelings towards the present sofware industry, Open vs Closed source, etc... Taking into account the horrible legislation that is coming out in the USA, and the nasty ways they are circumnavigating laws and basic rights, in order to penalize people who aren't even members of their nation. What are people's thoughts on things like the DMCA, and UCITA and how these pieces of legislation directly or indirectly effect you as a developer?

I feel like it's getting to the point where the larger closed source companies are doing anything in their power to eradicate the open source movement. Look at the SCO fiasco, things MicroSoft has done in the past and what they are doing going forward, etc..(not to "bash" MicroSoft, well not much, but they are the most visible anti-OSS company). Though on the flip side, we are still here and thriving. I am firmly in the opensource camp, as is Perl, but it's scary for me watching whats going on, while guessing at what "behind the scenes" types of things are happening in regards to monetary nudges, companies and politicians washing each others backs, companies providing unbelievable discounts for select clientel in order to get them locked in, etc.

Where do other monks weigh in on this? I mean we have great organizations like the EFF, and ACLU which protect peoples rights, but is it enough? These organizations could be so much more effective if the entire community actively backed them, but one of our cardinal virtues is laziness which leads to issues ;)... What about patents like Amazon's where they have patented a "one-click" shopping technique so no one else is now allowed to store cookie/meta data in a DB and "remember" a customer when they come back to their site, at least not without paying Amazon for the rights to use their technology.

I guess thats what I want to say, or at least my thoughts at present to at least start this thread.

MMMMM... Chocolaty Perl Goodness.....

In reply to (OT) Software (?:Industry) in general by l2kashe

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