The Problem Throughout history people have chosen whether they would compete in order to hoard power or whether they would cooperate to share it and empower each other. Our species, unfortunately, seems consistently to compete rather than cooperate. Sometimes, we cooperate in order to compete.
Modern society seems to choose the later.
But for the most part, our history shows how confused we often times are about whether we should compete or whether we should cooperate. With new technologies like personal computers and the Internet, our ignorance gets the best of us and we allow the greedy to compete, and we try to follow the lead of the biggest and the baddest marketplace leader. The goal of these technologies is communication itself. These tools were originally developed by scientists who wanted to communicate amongst themselves and share their respective breakthroughs. To introduce proprietary and restrictive licensing into this equation is to compromise the very purpose for which the technologies were devised in the first place.