I think the key was that the gleaning you mention was collection of unharvested _leftovers_, whereas the article talks about waltzing into someone else's yard and taking things off of their trees. I didn't notice the author implying that it was limited only to trees/plants that they knew were in a post-harvest state - it seemed rather the opposite.

Might depend on your area of the world but around here you've only got a few days between the fruit ripening and the birds eating away at it, so ripe fruit on a tree is fair game.

Misc responses:

It's common to see people harvest blackberries, mushrooms, chestnuts.

Sustainable Ballard organizes gleanings from the local public market. Here's one of their projects. http://www.sustainableballard.org/food-gleaning/ I hope this practice is widespread.

My city has a couple groups that will come and harvest your trees. https://www.cityfruit.org/great-seattle-fruit-harvest

Find food near you. https://fallingfruit.org http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/04/23/178603623/wan...

I was once told that one of the bluesky uses cases for Google Maps was to enable someone to publish urban food sources. That person had a map online for while, much like falling fruit above, but I can't quickly refind that URL.

Urban food gathering always reminds me of Octavia Bulter's "The Parable of the Sower", where the protaganist is very resourceful. (A fate I hope we manage to avoid.) http://octaviabutler.org/2017/03/parable-of-the-sower-new-ed...

Non-mobile link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleaning

Oddly The Book of Ruth and the word "gleaning" are some of my most vivid memories from high school English.

"gleaning" information from something is basically "to take a richer understanding from something where the information comes to one freely, based on observance"

Meaning - freely available fruits of knowledge can be derived from that which - its basically a pun.

The fact that we lost the meta-knowledge around etymology is a sad thing...

There is a podcast by an etymology guy that has amazing insights to words - but, in my limited experience listening to him, lacks some meta meaning -- in that glean means to to take free fruit, glean means to see deeper info, glean means to harvest deeper info from the free info given, knowledge is thought of as fruit...

I was wrong -- it is known:

>>>glean (v.) Look up glean at Dictionary.com early 14c., "to gather by acquisition, scrape together," especially grains left in the field after harvesting, but the earliest use in English is figurative, from Old French glener "to glean" (14c., Modern French glaner) "to glean," from Late Latin glennare "make a collection," of unknown origin. Perhaps from Gaulish (compare Old Irish do-glinn "he collects, gathers," Celtic glan "clean, pure"). Figurative sense was earlier in English than the literal one of "gather grain left by the reapers" (late 14c.). Related: Gleaned; gleaning.

so.... to collect (information) from....

> There is a podcast by an etymology guy that has amazing insights to words

I do not google and go directly over to complain about lack of the relevant hyperlink.

Now, to my surprise there are quite a few linguistic podcasts.

Oddly enough, s/high school English/mandatory Bible reading in Catholic school as a third-grader/ and it's the same for me.

This comment is a fine Proustian madeleine, if I may :)

It undoubtedly predates the old testament, which is why it just says "described in the Hebrew Bible" in that Wikipedia link. You can't really invent scavenging leftovers. The rules the old testament added, was to ensure there was something for those, presumably desperate, people to find.

I guess the modern equivalent is supermarkets letting people take their unsold or out of date food?

Interesting, the french word is close to the english one: « glaner ».

Well, after a quick look at the dictionary, it appears that the English was derived from the French. This is hardly shocking as a great deal of French words entered the English language when the Normans conquered England (1066).

It's called "Pe'ah" (corner) and it's in the Hebrew Bible.

See http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/961516/jewish/...

It applies to grain harvest and fruit trees and is taken very seriously here in Israel.

But what does the bible say about intellectual property? :)

Quite a bit! A number of discussions in the Hebrew Bible:

https://torahlive.com/articles/halacha-teachers-articles/201...

To follow the rule of the land is ironically not very helpful for israel law.

The example of the copied mishna is ironic, because the plaintiff didn't write the selected parts, neither.

The comparison of IP to fish is a huge stretch. Illegal Encroachment is one thing but comparing people to fish is another. Still, I derived a new to me interpretation of intangible (as in not yet caught fish [and thus possibly not going to be caught either])

While the last example is rather topical, it contains no value judgement and still concernes tangible matters. What do the scholars have to say about reasoning by analogy?

Sure, the argument of upfront investment entitling to its fruit is compelling, but it's a slippery sloap init? Its from a time when selling people was a thing. I wouldn't give it too much thought. The article is very one sided and holier than thou in this regard for lack of a better word. (edit: forgive my ignorance, if the slave example is ill conceived)