The characterization that IP law is only intended to spur creative activity is incorrect. It was designed to balance the interests of the creator with those of society. And that balance is off, IP regulation has become a tool for rent seeking.
Yes, I had the exact same reaction and actually donated a print version of the book to the Internet Archive so they might create a digital ebook. It never materialized and I ended up reading the print version, and found it well worth the physical effort.
This is absolutely the easiest solution. We did this for open.media.mit.edu in order to archive the old wordpress site. Used wget to fetch all of the HTML and ran a script over it to remove some obvious clutter. Happy to help out. Your writing really shaped the way I thought about the potential of an open internet.
Since you list other non-open source solutions as well in your question, I’ll mention one more, which might be the closest to what you are looking for > maven.com.
We started collaborating with them right after they launched, and just finished our first course on their platform.
I also wish there was a good open source alternative but the revenue sharing with maven is fair, the team is a joy to work with, and the product is improving rapidly.
Sasha Frere-Jones used to be the music critic at the New Yorker and writes a fantastic (although somewhat irregular) substack blog > https://substack.sashafrerejones.com/
Can you share some articles or studies that demonstrate the increasing openness? (I hope it’s true that it cuts both ways, but would like to see more data/research).
I am not sure what you mean by “average American” but millions of people in this country rely on emergency room visits for their health care needs. I suspect the NHS provides a superior “patient” experience.
Since it’s a non-profit there are no shares or shareholders and he has no equity, ie the salary is the only way he financially benefits from the success of the organization. 800k is a lot of money but it doesn’t seem outlandish to me, considering the impact and popularity. Why should you need to choose between doing good and doing well?
I believe the Dom in Cologne was finished and is now being maintained by a staff of more than 100 stone masons etc... so many parts of it have been replaced over the years. I always found it fascinating to see how shining and light the restored parts looks compared to the black surface of the older parts. I quite like the dark surface, it gives the building a brooding power that I love. It’s my favorite church, but I am inescapably biased as I was born in Cologne.
I also prefer to track todos this way because it shows me how much free time I can realistically commit to new things. There was a calendar app that did this very well called Timeful, which Google acquired a few years ago. Some of the features from Timeful have been rolled into GCal, but this one doesn’t seem to have made it.
That is technically correct but in policy discussion and the Economics literature patents are usually linked to innovation (where innovation is defined as invention + commercialization). As the earlier poster suggests the link may not be as strong as its proponents argue, but we don’t have a lot of counter factual data. Innovative economies generally develop strong IP protection around the same time they become innovative.
For some parents it may be ego or hubris, for others irrational fear, and in many cases it may be driven by the consensus of a social group that someone identifies with.
The fact that individuals are making decision contrary to available evidence and data may be hard to accept (esp. for the HN community) but it happens all the time.
In order to convince people to change their behavior, appealing to the emotional and pro-social drivers may be more effective than providing better rational arguments.
To be clear: I am not endorsing people making obviously bad decisions, it drives me crazy, and I am 100% pro vaccines.