That said, I basically agree with you. And I've certainly met photographers shooting conferences and similar who nonetheless manage to produce images that are a cut above.
An observation I've heard a number of people make about professionals is that, if they're covering an event, they'll basically always come back with something solid and publishable even it it's not knock-your-socks-off great. This is admittedly easier in general these days but was harder when you were shooting film under difficult conditions.
"That said, I can see why professional software developers feel threatened and perhaps a little insulted too... Most projects in the article and on his Github profile look merely 'good enough' or 'usable' (as opposed to 'great')"
Which isn't too far off the mark, if I correctly recall Microsoft and Oracle's attitudes to free software circa 1999. Yet here we are.
Intellectual property laws are a bit extreme, but they also protect the small inventor/business owner.
Without these protections, we would have an increase in trade secrets and any individual or company that had enough money and resources could just sit there and legally rip everyone off.
China is a good example of this. With weak IP laws, tecnology moves at a snails pace and small business owners really can’t compete.
I beg to differ. With weak IP laws, technology moves at breakneck speeds with no artificial roadblocks (patents). Take dual-sim phones as an example of Chinese innovation - virtually every Chinese OEM supports them. Imagine if Apple had invented (and patented) this tech: only Apple would have it.
Writing a novel hasn't changed. It's the same as 50 years ago.
Photography: there are many time consuming effects that are not longer time consuming because of digital photography and digital editing.
Music: It used to require expensive equipment which is why you'd rent a studio. Now it requires a single PC or even just a single phone to replace $$$$$ of equipment and people. In other words it used to be much more work.
Movies: digital video cameras and access to cheap software have made it much less work for a tons of things that used to be much more time consuming.
Games: all the various engines have taken away man years of work that were needed to write an engine and all the support tools.
True and exactly! The same difficulty which is "not that difficult".
And I'm 80% against expansion of Copyright and patent, only a small portion against TM et al. Traditional patents are great (i.e. not look and feel, business process or software patents). Hell, original copyright was great. Those help with things you mention.
I am surprised that a protectionist, union-esque good-ol-boys club of photographers hasn't emerged that would use money to encourage organizers to prevent this person from taking photos. Seems every industry threatened with technology and the cheapening (or "hobbying" or "freeing") of their product tends to fight the producers at the expense of the consumers thereby accelerating their downturn.