On Frustration and Source Code

So this is somehow law if not law librarianship related, right?

Citing dissent across the Middle East, Europe and even the US in terms of OWS, Time has named "The Protester" as "person of the year." From Person of the Year Introduction by Time's Rick Stengel:

Is there a global tipping point for frustration? Everywhere, it seems, people said they'd had enough. They dissented; they demanded; they did not despair, even when the answers came back in a cloud of tear gas or a hail of bullets. They literally embodied the idea that individual action can bring collective, colossal change. And although it was understood differently in different places, the idea of democracy was present in every gathering. The root of the word democracy is demos, "the people," and the meaning of democracy is "the people rule." And they did, if not at the ballot box, then in the streets. America is a nation conceived in protest, and protest is in some ways the source code for democracy — and evidence of the lack of it.

See also, Time's cover story, The Protester by Kurt Anderson and The Media Messenger of Zuccotti Park about "how an activist/journalist's live video stream from New York City's Zuccotti Park garnered mainstream attention and helped galvanize a movement." Where was that guy back on Feb. 28, 2011?

There's the tie-in. If we are talking about a "tipping point for frustration", that certainly applies to the legal vendor-institutional buyer relationship and its "source code." Certainly isn't as world shaking as the examples cited by Time but... . [JH]