Lawyers, Guns, and Money

[Mac Norton]

On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Tim May wrote:
> 
> This is a good example of a point I made in my earlier post: academic 
> interests shift, following trends (translation: worth of granting tenure 
> for). Clipper and key escrow were very hot topics around 1993-95. Today, 
> it's stuff like ICANN and Napster (with Napster fading...).

Tim makes a valid point here, but omits a companion point of 
perhaps greater importance, in context.  Faddish as it sometimes--
well, hell, often--is, the academic side of the law is the 
*only* side of the law that even begins to reward originality.
Those of us who actually represent people find that original
thinking is the bane of most judges, unless you can make them
believe the idea started with them.

Any parallels in software, both as to faddishness among
the "original" thinkers and leader-following otherwise?
MacN