Coding can be a fun hobby, but it takes time (sometimes weeks/months/years), dedication and teamwork to go through all the steps required to turn out a product. And then to make that product available to the masses freely (as in freedom), often at one's own expense ... is breathtaking. I appreciate everyone who contributes to Linux and GNU software in general. You make the world go 'round. This also goes for those who contribute financially, and those who contribute by participating in forums such as this to support others.

I also appreciate them.

Hear! Hear!

I will give this a big +1 too, though I originally paid for the Redhat 5.2 that got me going on it in 1999, it has all been free since then. And a thumbs up for John Candy in the signature, sadly, he died way too young.

The entire business(!) concept of ”cooperative(!!) software development” was an enormous stretch for the lawyers who nevertheless managed to hammer out software licenses such as GNU within the very-crazy frameworks of international software laws … laws that were, after all, geared around “exclusivity,” not “cooperation.”

Nevertheless, they ushered in the essential notion of “a rising tide lifts all boats” by legally protecting the rights of each captain. Such a thing had never been done before. Yet they did it without, so far as I am aware, changing any nation’s law.

The rest is legal history: “cooperative development” became “open source,” as companies around the planet learned the value of letting go(!) of what they had once regarded as their most-precious intellectual property rights… and realized that they could do so without(!) sacrificing their shareholder’s interests. Indeed: “quite the opposite!”

Entirely(!) unprecedented.

I wish they would do the same for hardware, its quite expensive these days under patent law it will go for at least 20 years before we see the technology being shared. Why not now?

Better than close to a century of copyright now in effect, soon to be expanded as Mickey comes out of copyright in the near future. It will have to be extended for the sake of the children once more. The open hardware projects are just getting started, they will take some time for the results to be felt. There is the OpenFirmware, the RISC processors it will gain steam eventually and hopefully we can leave the parasite corporations behind.