HN user
Agreed. Just started my second postdoc job in pyhsics and 30% of my time goes into paper work for registering in a new country and at the same time applying already for new positions. This is by far the major time waste I see.
I think that NR exemplifies how scientific software should _not_ be.
Despite the availability of the source code, already the usage of NR programs itself is seriously restricted, even after license purchasing. Distribution of the software is not allowed (neither in the original of modified versions), which prevents proper verification and advance of computations. Adaptations or copies of the source code (extracted from the software or from the book) constitute a copyright infringement. Academic citations alone do not avoid such infringement. Rather, specific exceptions should be asked (and may not be granted).
Scientific codes widely used in physics often have comments such as 'this is taken from NR' (clearly violating the license/copyright). It shows that what most of the scientific community expects is everyone to be allowed to use/modify/distribute scientific codes, given proprer attribution. In the same way as everyone would feel free to write down and modify the standard model Lagrangian in their papers by citing appropriate references, and to publish their results without any of the above restrictions.