Yup, a history course would be a good idea. I still find it surprising when programmers, even on HN, don't know where the term "Open Source" came from, as if it always existed.
I was involved in a source code copyright lawsuit a few years ago as an expert witness. It made me realize how immature the software industry is. How many terms we use have no authoritative definition. There are no books that cover the basics that say "this is this" and "that is that"