"This is only half-trolling."<p>Would a half troll be something like a half elf with a troll father and human mother? :-P I  believe such a player class  exists in the game Arcanum.<p>More seriously, the author drowns whatever valid points he may have in trollish blather.<p>As to the "endless tinkering that an "open" system allows is viewed as a useless waste of time by the vast majority of people," the value of tinkering is <i>to the tinkerers</i>.<p><i>Non tinkerers</i> making vlaue judgments on its utility is irrelevant to its desirability to tinkerers. <i>I</i> think music is irrelevant so <i>you</i> shouldn't get to play your violin? A more  viable argument is that I shouldn't have to subsidize your violin, not that my judgment about your musical tinkering being "a useless waste of time" is "not completely wrong".