i really challange the market, though, to imagine software without copyright. It would be radically different, but i argue it would be much more competitive in some respects. For example, as much as people would hate to see microsoft swallow linux, i would equally like to hack microsoft machine code. It would certainly help people get away from this arbitrary dellusion of 'source code' religion and begin to take things for what they are. Of course, there could still be non-disclosure agreements, and people would be much more reluctant to share information. Still...

...you can already "hack microsoft machine code." Copyright law doesn't prohibit you from doing this. Copyright law also doesn't prohibit you from distributing a program to automatically apply such a hack, although distributing a hacked copy is a violation since it is a derived work.

You actually can buy a source code license for Windows, it's just... well... beyond the financial means of most people.

I was commenting on Obi, not the length of patents and the public domain of expired copyrights. I agree with you 100%, really.

Yeah, like I say, I don't know anything about patents or copyrights, I was just trying to say that I think the length of time that the software is protected could be shorter.