> The US once upon a time had a law where any research that was 
> done while being sponsored by tax money had to be released 
> under an open copyright or to the public domain. They 
> reversed that sometime in the 1970s. 

The same happened in my country. Although we never had an explicit law
that university-produced stuff should be free, it was nevertheless the
case. Nowadays universities are encouraged to turn their inventions into
money - so the state has less to pay. So in the end we must blame
ourselves - we voted for the politicians that cut down the taxes (or
raised them less) by cutting down the universities budgets. 

IMO this is one of the fundamental flaws of democracy: the feedback
cycle is so short that behaviour that is only long-term profitable is
not rewarded. Politicians are only human, so they do what they are
rewarded for: things that are short-term good (or at least look so up
front).

This can of course be solved by dictatorship, if only we could find a
way to select the right dictator - and get rid of him/her after he/she
has turned bad. But maybe not - better live with the flaws of democracy
than pay the blood of the periodic overthrowing and re-selecting a
dictator!

Wouter van Ooijen

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Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
consultancy, development, PICmicro products
docent Hogeschool van Utrecht: www.voti.nl/hvu
 
 

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