I think this is a very well executed idea. I like how the layout is very polished and beautiful and I feel like this could be something being read standing at a news-stand or in a bookstore.
I haven't read the entire thing yet, but reading Eric Davis's article was more than worth it. I felt like I got a free therapy session.
The worst part was being unable to play games that had trophies offline. It may be an overblown worry, but I couldn't help conceiving future scenarios where I couldn't play titles in my game library in the future (after this generation of consoles).
This is sort of what I was getting at. I agree that releasing source code shouldn't be a matter of giving up property rights. In fact, plenty of commercial systems and software do allow source code access. However, it always seems to be through messy licenses and cumbersome legal agreements to not divulge anything.
As it stands, companies seem more motivated to protect their IP rights than to produce tools that would keep science reliable. IMHO, companies view source code as the product of their investments and secrets worth protecting. The main fear seems to be that if these secrets are published competition could use them against them by receiving a boost in their own R&D efforts by deriving methods and processes from their own work.
This doesn't seem like just a software problem since I've heard wetware horror stories from biotech and agriculture folks.
It honestly makes me wonder if software should be something you can patent. At some level, it seems disturbingly similar to companies that patent colors, genes, or derived living organisms.
Someone already pointed out examples from East Africa. In west Africa, there is the native pictographs of Adinkra of Ghana. There is also the native Bagam writing system of Cameroon (extinct). In Nigeria, there was a script known as Nsibidi.
Unfortunately, it's a common misconception that Africa had no writing systems or math.
I'm not personally attacking you, but that's the point of the articles. According the Georgia law (the blow job example), that woman is on the sex offender list and her offense is listed as "sodomy". Georgia's creative definition pretty much causes that woman to be on the receiving end of a lot of reactionary hatred and possibly puts her in danger, because people have no idea what her actual "crime" was. A lot of people don't think beyond hearing "sex offender" and "children".
There's a constant climate of fear concerning sexual crimes, especially ones that involve children, that are making us do very irrational things to feel safer.
Also, I appreciate your commentary on your personal feelings about this issue. It's a complex issue and I think some of the down-votes might've been a bit too hasty.
I haven't read the entire thing yet, but reading Eric Davis's article was more than worth it. I felt like I got a free therapy session.
Keep up the good work.