Licensing in the Virtual World

One of my friend's youngsters recently told me an old joke about two cyclists riding a tandem bicycle up a steep hill. Once they reached the top, the first cyclist turns to his buddy, marveling at how hard the ride up the hill was. The second cyclist responds that it was a good thing he had the brakes on the entire time so as not to accidentally roll back down the hill.

The joke reminds me of the various factors affecting the evolution of virtualized computing environments. On one hand, there are