Comment by tamimio

Domestication. A lot of people are afraid to go against the status quo, or to be different from their colleagues, or demand things that aren't usually demanded. It shouldn't be hard for a programmer who is hired to demand that he owns the code he writes. Keep in mind too that a lot of company/startup founders are on HN and having this idea spreading around threatens their profits. Instead of having people paid peanuts to write code the company will own, then replace said people with a week's notice to bring another cheaper person, having programmers owning that code will end their exploitation model.

As for the up/down votes, I have them disabled so I don't know nor do I care about them. I actually should write that part in my signature.