An interesting discussion of open source licensing which argues that the success of the movement is based on the possibility of using legal sanctions to enforce its terms. "Without some onus on users to give something back for what they get, it is unlikely that a robust software commons will continue to flourish indefinitely." I think there's a point to that, though it's a sad commentary on the state of the world when an explicit declaration must be made to prevent people from stealing from the public commons; it's a lot like requiring that each tree in the public park be labeled in order to prevent people from cutting them down for their own use. It seems to me that permission to privatize and copyright publicly available content or code ought to be the exception, not the rule.
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