Hey, Mick:

I usually don't get into these discussions because as you point out, they are endless and unresolveable. One of the assumptions of many people is that if it isn't "traditional" it ain't folk. Not only does the person or persons who formed the song have to be dead, it has to have been long enough ago that nobody remembers who they were.
That's not very comforting. I wonder if in the 1800's, when someone made up a song about logging, if the other lumberjacks sitting around the campfire said, "Stop singing that new-fangled garbage, That's not folk music! You're not even dead yet!!!" Not that they even knew the term.

I don't see other folk arts being so restrictive. No one says, "That isn't a folk quilt because you're still alive."
Tradition never ends. That's the whole thing about traditions: they are carried on. To me, the issue isn't whether a recently written song will be remembered one hundred years from now. If being remembered a hundred or two hundred years later is the criteria, there are many popular songs that have lasted over 100 years. Tradition, to me means something that is carrying on the tradition, and folk music isn't just the Music Of The Dead And Forgotten. I love tradtional music, and enjoy more recently written folk songs that reflect, honor and carry on that tradition.

Jerry