Maybe I'm just missing your line of reasoning here. I thought you were saying that you expected people on HN to rush to the defense of intellectual property as

Maybe I'm just missing your line of reasoning here. I thought you were saying that you expected people on HN to rush to the defense of intellectual property as a viable abstraction for understanding (for example) software or research. Do I have it wrong? Yes, companies exist in the real world. The real world is full of open source. And full of companies that produce open source material and don't regard it as "intellectual property" except insofar as to license it to protect themselves and their users/readers/customers.