be they software ((Inventions)) or perhaps Not. If I happened to directly copy freely available information that Boeing had developed, it would seem to me that Boeing could object to including their innovations in the *invention* in question, and completely gut the validity of any patents that I might otherwise acquire using their *open source* information. There would be no permissive or any other type of license, just the profitable use of their innovations without their permission. The open source thing just seems to be a way for software developers to completely avoid the whole concept of patent rights, since they seem to be mostly pretty adamant about denying the intrinsic value of patent rights. Since patents and the rights they confer have been Very successful for more than 200 years, I would submit that many software developers might go the way of many extinct creatures like Do Do birds or Pterodactyls, for instance. Fun while it lasted though, dontcha think? The responsibility of a programmer is to avoid behavior counter to a client's requirement(s). This includes doing research that when passed on, a client can seek the legal knowledge to avoid litigation in the future. As for copyright, and licenses based upon it -- I offer: "U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's 2008 ruling on Jacobsen v. Katzer" ..."made it clear that OSS licenses are enforceable," @Gene It isnt that people wanted to read GPL here but your article is poorly written and on top that you