Selling coals to miners, was Re: Dilema

[MJ Ray]

John Tapsell <tapselj0 at cs.man.ac.uk> wrote:
> In the UK, and I expect at every university everywhere, you sign a document 
> granting them ownership of your brain when you join.

As I know all too well, in this situation, the so-called "viral freedom" of
the GPL is your friend.

Quite frankly, I think I am offended that public money received by
universities (and indeed now the money paid by the students themselves) is
used to develop products which are not available for the national good.  Why
are we paying for their R&D effort that follows a broken product development
process?  If the public pays, the public should be allowed to use it without
paying a second time, surely?