Free Software as a Public Good 445
acone asks: "Have any national governments taken measures to subsidize open source projects? I'm aware that many have endorsed Linux in particular, and free software in general, but I was wondering about actual funding. I ask because the notion of a good built and maintained by the community almost inevitably suggests that such be treated as a public good. Many of the public goods we now take for granted--such as police, public libraries, and public fire departments--were historically provided either by private enterprises or by loosely-organized volunteers, neither of which have proven nearly as effectively for the common goods as their current government-run equivalents. An excellent example is the organization of the police force, libraries and fire department in colonial Philadelphia, in which these services became established in a very grassroots manner, then gradually gained acceptance as something that the state should provide. This pattern looks temptingly applicable to free software. In addition to the current, community-based mechanisms in which free software is developed, wouldn't it be beneficial to have dedicated groups of professional free software developers, paid by national governments to serve the overall interests of society? Seems to me like such would be a Good Thing."
Someone's been reading Lessig... (Score:3, Insightful)
One of these things is not like the other.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Far better would be something like the Ford Foundation giving grants to folks after they have a track record.
I see.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Code is International... (Score:3, Insightful)
There are some United Forces (UN) but they really arent a major say in what goes on (US war on "Terrorists").
If governments have thier say, they will think what they choose to write is the right way. Governments of different nations dont always agree (AKA WAR).
Whats to stop the US government to hire more professional coders to get more of what they want to see in OSS
Yes OSS has the branches and someone has the overall say in what makes it in and what does not but when was the last time you heard someone disagreeing with the government and not getting some sort of herassment for it (raisethefist.com) ?
Do you really want to add that much more politics into OSS?
Do you really want to wait for the government to finish coding something that you need to use (we all know how governement deadlines work!!!) ?
Just my
Re:in short, no (Score:5, Insightful)
and not everyone is driving his car on that road, but the gov payed for it. and not everyone is going to the public library, but the gov payed for it, and so on.
oss is just like a library: free information for everyone.
Re:One of these things is not like the other.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The FSF got its start by selling tapes of the Emacs source code and precompiled binaries! You could also get GCC+binutils+stuff tapes and X11R4 stuff.
They were $150+ a pop for a while. [geocrawler.com]
Re:Government needs software, too (Score:2, Insightful)
This points out a problem with this. The GPL is based on Copyright Law, your right to copy the software is granted under the GPL only if you follow the provisions of the GPL. Since the Government can't hold copyrights, how could the Government fund copyrighted development?
Now that I type this, I realize the Government CAN fund copyrighted development. They do it all the time. Government contractors often copyright their works and license it to the Government. The Government could let contracts for software requiring that the software be licensed exclusively under the GPL.
Re:in short, no (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good idea but. (Score:2, Insightful)
I personally don't see this going anywhere though because it really is a community effort. Almost like voting in a way. If you want a feature, simply "vote" it into an implementation. That can be done by actually programming it or requesting the developers to add it.
Government employees could work out specific algorithims/implementations (the best example being SE Linux), but the heart of open source is the community, and I don't see that shifting to the government anytime soon. There will always be more community developers than government ones. Small time additions to the open source world is all I see from government institutions. I doubt anything bigger than the SE Linux kernel would happen, especially as the Department of Free Software Production or something.
Besides, would any government really want to help create the infrastructure of another government for them (e.g. "terrorist" nation uses the USALinux distro)? There's a reason for export restrictions on certain cryptographic algorithms in the US. Or would those nations really trust foreign governments to do this? Might make an electronic war pretty easy if you wrote all the software.
Free Software != Needed for Society (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't understand how the poster of this article goes off and talks about how the police and fire deptartments all started and then compares it to FS. Why? Because these were public services that were needed by the people for their own good and for the better of the country and the society. This wasn't something that needed competition to stay alive. At this point it is a basic need. And it was then too, we just didn't realize it.
FS is NOT a basic need and it needs competition to survive as does the entire Computer and Software industry. The Gov't shouldn't make it a "pulic service" type of industry where all most public software comes from the gov't (it wouldn't be public anymore, now would it?)
Sure, the Gov't can subsidise some costs by providing funs and grants to some people/companies/organization for developing software (even it is to be put out under GPL), but this isn't an industry that should be seen as a public need. Gov't shouldn't control this, it shouldn't promote it, nor hinder it. Gov't should use what is best for it, and we (me and you, the programmers, the users) should user/program what we think is best.
Re:Government funding (Score:2, Insightful)
Everyone has an agenda.
Public AND Private Funding are both Appropriate (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you don't know much about free software. Free software is about freedom, not price. GNU and the FSF have sold free software since the 1980s, on magnetic tape and later CD ROM. Some of their products were quite pricy (and available for gratis download besides), but they still made some money selling the media, as the convinience was worth it to some.
Government funded public works is a Good Thing(tm), whether it is highways, the last mile of connectivity (which alas, is privately owned by local monopoly barons in most, but not all, of the US), or basic software infrastructure used to hold and manipulate public data.
We would never tolerate our highway system being held hostage by a single company. Why on earth would we tolerate such a thing with our public information?
As for private funding, that is all well and good, but private funding has limitations (such as the profit motive, which works sometimes but, contrary to right-wing myth, does not always work or yeild the best results). Public funding has its limitations as well, but pulling projects that are serving the public interest because of no immediate exploitable profit generally isn't one of them.
Indeed, the best public goods are those which include both private and public funding, where the limitations of one are generally countered by the strengths of the other. Examples include, but are not limited to, academia and university research.
Re:in short, no (Score:3, Insightful)
My personal take on it is that the government should cut back on purchasing proprietary software and use free software whenever possible. Those savings could then be used to cut taxes and give taxpayers back more of their paycheck. I don't like the idea of the government handing cash to free software developers any more than to proprietary software developers. If the government does contribute to free software it should be though man-hours that advance features the government itself requires.
Sure, as long as the license is right (Score:4, Insightful)
The GPL is probably the reason that the government would be unable to just take the reigns of free software funding, like they took over the operation of libraries. Simply because it is counterproductive for the government, which has effectively unlimited resources, to compete with commercial entities. Nobody wins in that situation, not the gov't, not the companies, and not the consumer. GPL code cannot be used commercially in a conventional sense, and if the government were to put serious efforts behind it, they could wind up destroying a lot of commercial enterprises, not to mention wasting taxpayer dollars for a while as they duplicate a service which is already being provided to the public. Eventually, once commercial developers go under, they would just be providing the same service more expensively (government is generally less efficient than private enterprise).
Developers who use the GPL have already decided that their software should not be a public good in the sense that libraries are (in that anyone could go to a library, read books on a subject, and then resell what they learned for money). Even though the knowledge to understand GPL code might be expensive to get, and difficult to package in a useful way, they insist that anyone should be able to redistribute such an effort, for free, in exchange only for recognition for the developer. This effectively makes knowledge easy to exchange, but at a cost of making it worthless, unsellable.
A BSD license on goverment developed code might not be much better initially, as what could result would be the government doing work for commercial companies for free (from their point of view), while they continue to charge comparable prices for their work of packaging the software. Eventually, though, prices would be driven down, as the software itself became a commodity, and the knowledge of how to package it was the only way companies could compete. This would be software as a public good, in a general sense. Companies like the initial consequence of this scenario, and fear the second, so they want to make sure that things stay in the first stage, where the government is doing a certain amount of work for them, without eating their lunch.
I think if the government were to step in and make certain kinds of software (starting with the most often used pieces of code, the OS) a commodity, it could have very positive results for society. On the other hand, open source developement is already going on, so maybe they don't need to be involved, except for preserving the legal conditions that allows this to happen.
Answer: No (Score:4, Insightful)
The "mechanisms" you mention are "services" (libraries, police, and fire). The government provides these for the good of all people
What you want is a "product" and not a "service". What you're asking for is for the government to provide free every product which does "good for the public". This would include, soap, laundry detergent, deoderant (heh), cars, bikes, clothes, scissors, pens, pencils, paper, toilet paper, paper clips, computers, books, magazines (aka toilet paper), etc etc (you get my point).
So what you're asking for is the government to determine what "product" is for the public good, subsidize it to limit business opprotunities to provide individuals who are looking to earn a living and profit from their work. Not to mention stock holders who make money on the profits made by companies who sell these products.
Doing this would not only affect the general moral of workers who provide such services, but will put thousands of people out of work while at the same time increasing our taxes to figures that I don't even want to imagine.
Generally, bad idea. Period. Besides, this "public good" is only to be for the public good of about 1/4 the US population.
Oh and by the way, most towns in the U.S. still have volunteer services where very little money is provided by the town.
Re:Government funding (Score:4, Insightful)
Be careful what you wish for... (Score:2, Insightful)
First off: The government should subsidize Free Software [fsf.org] not open source software as a whole, if it subsidizes anything.
Second: I don't think that the governemt should have any direct control over Free Software or the manufacture therof. Police and fire departments, as well as schools and other public institutions, are completely government controlled. I don't want the government to be able to make arbitrary rules for the code that I want to write as Free Software, which could feasibly happen if the government subsidized Free Software in the same way as the aforementioned institutes are.
Another thing to remember: Free Software is Free Speech, not Free Beer. Programmers can (and do) make money off of thier Free Software. Should the government subsidize commercial entities? I don't particularly agree with airline bailouts or other corporate gimmes that the government spends my tax money on; I would disagree just as much if the government was giving me money to write and sell Free Software as a subsidation (if I were selling it for profit as well.)
Now, I do agree that it would be nice to set up something like a grant system for Free Software programmers. I could write the government with a proposal for such-and-such program, get a government endorsement and some grant money, and write the code up. It would also be great if there were government coding standards that participants would have to keep to (think GNU coding standards [ctssn.com].) This would garuntee that the taxpayer's money is going to a good quality product.
But I trust the government as far as I can throw it. The implementation I described would be ideal, but I'm sure that if the government got into software, it would just make a mess. The government is already creating enough of a problem as far as intellectual "property" laws and software patents. I don't think I want it meddling with my development plans any more.
Oh well. Just my 2c.
Re:in short, no (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all public goods only need to benefit enough people to enjoy a majority support. Does the military benefit everyone? How about the people who disagree with how the military is being used? Does the bus system benefit everyone? Does welfare benefit everyone?
Arguably all of these do support everyone; that is, everyone benefits by living in a country where the destitute don't have to resort to theft to avoid starvation, everyone benefits from living in a society which is well protected from foreign aggressors, and society as a whole benefits from having people who are incapable of passing a driving test, or unable to afford a car, never the less able to hold a job and be productive so that they won't have to live on welfare.
Likewise open software benefits everyone -- if not directly then indirectly -- in lower prices for services, in greater productivity, resulting in greater general prosperity, in better and cheaper communication technologies, and greater efficiency for those areas that open software is able to cover.
Where would we be without open software. Let's see. No email, no Internet (no DNS), no TCP/IP, no world wide web, no interoperable software. Novell, Microsoft, MacOS, and the mainframes would all still be separate islands.
Yeah, I guess that doesn't add up to squat.
Re:Who funded BSD? TCP/IP? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sometimes, I don't see why folks complain that MS used some government source code in a product. If they want it to become a standard, then everyone needs to be able to freely integrate it into their systems, including commercial interests.
Re:Government funding (Score:3, Insightful)
I would go so far as to argue that the freedom from corporate and goverment influence is one of the most essential notions surrounding the development of free software. Although, if a government is willing to concede that open code is of higher quality and more secure than its closed source counterpart, then they really couldn't exert much influence on the development. The inefficiencies that would result from their meddling would be out in public for all to see.
Its an interesting concept, which definately deserves more attention.
Traxman
No, bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Its called socialism. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes socialism seems to be the answer for dealing with the digital world, its not the answer for the physical world but definately for the digital world.
Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, who do you think paid for the earliest work on Linux? The Finnish government, of course! Like in many European countries, the taxpayer gives grants to students, and that's most likely what Linus lived on.
NO NO NO! (Score:2, Insightful)
1. OSS developers develop what they like, not what they get paid for. Often, they are able to make money supporting what they give away for free, or by cross licensing, or other development. This is the why OSS generates good software, the developers do what they like.
2. Govt. programmers, where to start: the potential to become yet another govt. employee, and develop the "its not my job" attitude, will insure that govt. sponsored software will be even less appealing than the MS products. By having programmers as Govt. employees, you will be telling them what to develop, and insuring very low productivity.
3. Software is not a necessary service, thus has no place on the govt. payroll. Police, firemen, librarians ok. But we don't need a communistic system where software developers are being paid for providing a service that was previously done for free. The role of any govt. is supposed to be to only do for the public, those things that they can't reasonably do for themselves. Paving roads, building schools and national defense are good examples.
4. If you think software is expensive now, wait until its free. Just like healthcare, it would become a bloated office, infected with special interests, potentially corrupted by "donations" from certain vendors, and low in both quality and accountability.
5. Since I am not as proficiant as reading code as many, I would be unlikely to use "govt. generated" code, since I could not be sure there was not some type of tracking or backdoor to my system. Frankly, a little suspicion of the govt. is a good thing.
6. There is nothing wrong with the current system of proprietary software, GPL, BSD, and all the other licenses. Its not broke, why fix it? It is controlled by the individual and companies. By allowing govt. into the software business, not only are you giving it an unfair advantage in the market place with this "free" software (which isn't free, its tax subsidized) and you are potentially putting people out of business and costing jobs.
This is a very bad idea on many levels. An interesting topic over a beer, but a bad idea. I can think of 100s of reasons, but I think you get the general idea by now.
sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously though, such a program would require a careful balance between funding OSS and not killing our technology economy. We live in a capitalist society, and if our government takes action that hurts businesses that are considered to be doing an "OK" job (MS) then it seems a little contradictory to capitalism.
Funding and providing Fire Departments is different because not only are these Public Good, they determined that they are necessary for healthy living (not dying.) Software is nowhere near this level of importance to most people. The government has no motivation to stop software businesses from doing what they do. If the government needs something (like TCP/IP) then they commission it and it gets made.
Re:No, bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Grow up. The day you have your government paying money for open source development is the day that Bill Gates will show up to take that money, and have your taxes pay him for the work he has his people do to that open source software, making sure that it does what he want's it to do, not you.
Separation of Church and state (Score:3, Insightful)
Much like the church is best off separated from the state, so the free software "movement", as a philosophy, cannot survive if institutionalized as a part of government. Free software organizations already get government and corporate grants, support and development through educational institutions, and widespread acceptance from the technical community, all without having a "Department of Public Software"
Funding = wrong way to go (Score:4, Insightful)
Now imagine a scenario where there is governmnet funding. Out of work programmers, people who took a semester of pascal in highschool and are now looking for cash, etc., will go looking for projects to do to get in on the funding chuckwagon rather than responding to an existing need. Other hangers-on will attempt to join, not because they know the subject well or feel the same need to create a particular bit of software, but because they want in on the $$$. Arguments over which code to include would be biased by the author's desire to prove to the funding source that they had added the most lines of code, and not on technical merrit. Overall, it would become the opposite of what a good open source project should be.
Re:in short, no (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, by that rational there should be no Coast Guard since a significant amount of the population is landlocked. There should be no federal funding for the INS to increase patrols on the Mexico-U.S. border since that isn't much of a problem to the citizens in Minnesota. Heck, there shouldn't be federal funding for higher educational institutions because they do not benefit every citizen directly.
A typical response may be "Well, the Coast Guard, INS, and higher educational institutions benefit many directly, and benefit most indirectly, so they are still for the public good." Well that's exactly what OSS does.
Although not "EVERYONE" uses Linux or open source, "EVERYONE" does benefit from its use. Unless you live in a hole, you benefit from it directly on a daily basis, whether you realize it or not. Even those who do not benefit from it directly, benefit from it indirectly. Since further adoption benefits most if not all people, I think the author of the article suggesting further adoption and additional governmental support under the pretense of "the public good" is an insightful valid suggestion.
The thought that something for the public good means "an item or service that must benefit every individual directly" as is implied in your comment is completely ridiculous, a flawed presumption, and I feel you are careless for stating it as fact.
Re:Answer: No (Score:2, Insightful)
That aside, I think that the government competing with private enterprise example you gave could happen, in fact it already does, as the government DOES fund software, both open and closed. It hasn't really put anyone out of a job, in fact, since they are paying people to develope software they are creating jobs.
It's more likely that a programmer would get a *different* programming job than loose a job due to an increase in government funding of software projects, whether open or closed.
Re:No, bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
That's right! The bureaucrats who actually dole out the money would ultimately control the spending.
What is the obsession with everyone wanting the government to pay for everything? Has no one figured out that all government money comes from (is extorted from) the taxpayer? Why not have the government provide everyone with a house? a car? food? clothing? Those are all important! Entertainment is important, too, so "free" movie passes for everyone! Free vacations! Why, fiber-optic 10GB broadband to every home is a basic human right!
So you want to become a official Sponsored Software Developer? Describe the proposed project on form FSDF-11/a (in triplicate). Show us a copy of your software development license. Be ready for your quarterly code inspection. Do you have the proper number of minorities working on that project?
-Sigh- I so wish Socialism had died with the Soviet Union...
Re:Public AND Private Funding are both Appropriate (Score:3, Insightful)
Government funded public works is a Good Thing(tm)...
Government funding is like crack--it's nice at first, but eventually you end up prostituting yourself.
The Free (beer/freedom) model has worked well so far. Would you really feel better if the government had a bigger hand in it?
Re:Public AND Private Funding are both Appropriate (Score:3, Insightful)
Public funding is a good thing. Pork is not. Neither is using public funding as a carrot to modify behavior.
Re:Answer: No (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the question is asking whether the government should fund the development of software that's freely available for the public good. There's a big difference between providing copy-able bits and providing physical products. You're drawing an unwarranted parallel between a single government program and full-scale socialism.
So what you're asking for is the government to determine what "product" is for the public good, subsidize it to limit business opprotunities to provide individuals who are looking to earn a living and profit from their work. Not to mention stock holders who make money on the profits made by companies who sell these products.
So? Libraries limit business opportunities for bookstores. Public fire departments limit business opportunities for private firefighting companies. Police departments limit business opportunities for private security firms and private investigators. Any government service detracts from private business opportunities. The question to be asked is whether society benefits from the tradeoff.
Doing this would not only affect the general moral of workers who provide such services, but will put thousands of people out of work while at the same time increasing our taxes to figures that I don't even want to imagine.
I can't tell here whether you're referring to a government program to sponsor open-source development or to your straw-man target socialist government. If you're talking only about government funding of software development, I can't see how that would raise taxes to the enormous levels you seem to think it would.
Generally, bad idea. Period. Besides, this "public good" is only to be for the public good of about 1/4 the US population.
Not true. Software is fundamentally important to the economy. If publically funded software development were to make software more widely and cheaply available, the efficiency of the economy as a whole would improve, to everyone's benefit, even those who never sit in front of a monitor.
Oh and by the way, most towns in the U.S. still have volunteer services where very little money is provided by the town.
Unless I'm very much mistaken, any town with a fire department has to spend a significant amount of money on equipment and physical infrastructure, regardless of whether the actual labor is paid or free.
TheFrood
Re:Government funding (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt most governments would agree to sponsor something if they could not exercise tight control over it.
Aparently you've never heard of DARPA and this little thing called the internet. Yes, the government usually funds things that are in its best interest. However, agencies like DARPA have historically funded very long range visionary and exploratory research.
It is difficult for the government to have tight control over something like that.
Actually... (Score:4, Insightful)
Much of the web is run on Free Software, and most (if not all) packets will cross routers, firewalls or bridges that are running Free Software at some point during thier journey.
In fact, thier own computers may be using code that was directly derived from Free Software, such as the improved network stack in Windows (from BSD, IIRC).
The world of propietary, closed source software has benefitted greatly from Free Software development, and this has benefitted EVERYONE, even if they know nothing about it.
Including you.
Also, there is no precident to a "benefit EVERYONE" requirement for government funding (at least in the U.S.).
One example of government funding for a select few persons would be the funding of natural disater insurance programs for persons who choose to build thier houses on flood plains and on beaches. Government funded flood plain insurance enables people to live along rivers and the same coverage allowed the wealthier americans to ensure that most of us could not afford to live near the beach. (Before natural disaster relief plans covered beachfront property, it was quite inexpensive to have a house on or near the beach, but most chose not to because of the possibility of storm damage or erosion.)
Another would be farming subsidies for tobbacco farmers. I fail to see how one could conscrue such funding as "beneficial to EVERYONE".
Re:No, bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
And who do you suggest gets that special funding for what the "public wants"? Once you pay some 14 year old kid who just happens to be the child of a Chicago democrat party official, how do you avoid paying every open source developer out there, particularly those of core key components? Or do you just thumb your nose at them and tell them you expect them to keep contributing their efforts for free while their taxes are being given to projects that they don't consider worthy of effort?
Software, like information, is a public good (Score:2, Insightful)
Many publicly funded institutions and agencies provide information at little -- and usually, no -- direct cost. The providing of this information is widely considered to be a public good.The particular purpose and sort of this information varies:
- Some of this information is the sort of information which enables private citizens and land owners -- private citizens granted temporary, revocable, and limited authority over some portion of our natural resources -- to steward our nation's -- and our world's -- shared resources in a responsible way, consistent with the duties they as such have to each and every one of us.
- Some of this information enables private citizens to do with these resources over which they have this temporary, revocable, and limited authority, that which they have a legitimate expectation to do.
- Some of this information enables citizens to evaluate the risks they face by engaging in certain behaviors, or by living in certain ways or in certain environments.
- Some of this information enables private citizens enables citizens to carry out tasks and to obtain certain other goods which they as people in these modern times have a legitimate expectation be able to do or to have access to, regardless of their social, political, or economic status, situation, and circumstance.
One example of this type of information is that provided through "extension services":
Many counties, states, as well as public universities, provide publicly funded information services. This often includes providing information about agriculture, livestock, landscaping, land care, building, wildlife, codes, and drainage systems.
Another example of this information is personal health care related:
We provide information to expecting mothers, to those citizens -- and non citizens within our borders -- who face an increased health risk due to their behavior, life choices, or environment,. We provide to everyone information about their bodies and life changes, to the extent that they as people in these modern times have a legitimate expectation to know about their bodies and life changes regardless of their education or their ability to pay for it.
Computer software as a public good is similar in many ways to information as a public good:
- Computer software, like information, once obtained, is an unlimited resource. Distributing one copy of it does not limit or otherwise affect our ability to distribute another identical copy, and this distribution may be done at very little to no cost.
- Computer software, like information, requires both an initial investment to organize, verify, and to be put into an accessible form, as well as continuing costs to maintain the accuracy and relevance of.
- Computer software, like information, provides the groundwork which enables private citizens to be good stewards of that portion of our resources over which they have some temporary, revocable, and limited authority.
- Computer software, like information, provides the groundwork which enable private citizens to carry out the tasks and to obtain the additional goods which they in virtue of being citizens have a legitimate expectation to carry out and to obtain.
One example of this is access to electronic communication:
Increasingly, modern people have a legitimate expectation to be able to communicate with friends, family members, their representatives, and appointed government officials, electronically, and from the privacy of their own homes. Software provides the groundwork which enables these citizens to realize these legitimate expectations. It is unacceptable for the realization of private citizens' legitimate expectation to use secure, reliable, and comprehensible, and usable, electronic communication in the privacy of their own homes to be dependent upon their acceptance of a draconian set of terms of use and limitation of rights such as m
Re:Careful with the term 'public good' (Score:2, Insightful)
it is hard to believe that people in this day and age still cite economics definitions like these as if they were laws of physics. don't believe everything you learn in college. economic laws, unlike physics laws are made by men for men, and above definition is completely arbitrary. you can make laws to restrict or unrestrict non-rivalry and non-excludability, or you can chose not to make such laws. the point is, if there is POLITICAL WILL to say some good such as software SHOULD be non-excludable, then you pass the law and bang, free software is the norm. there is nothing inherent here. it is a CHOICE to exclude something, or NOT to exclude something.
and by the way, not even physics laws are a give. everyone knows that. its a million times more true for economics.
In the end, why should they? (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about it.
Re:No, bad idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, but all those little 10 million a year pork projects do add up. Government waste, whether small or large, is a problem. One cannot justify program "X" simply because it is a little amount of waste. Why doesn't it occur to some people that we'd have a smaller amount of waste if we didn't start spending in the first place?
Re:Who funded BSD? TCP/IP? (Score:2, Insightful)
I have to disagree. First, licenses like GPL do not prevent ANYBODY from using the software. They might not be able to take publicly funded GPL software and build it into a product with 900% profit margin, but why exactly do we have to gaurantee them that right. They can choose not to use it because it might require them to GPL their software, but that is their right and thier choice.
Also, the government builds roads, but that doesn't mean you are allowed to use them to deliver a bomb. Or to drive 95 in a 65 speed zone. Many public goods produced/maintained by the government have restrictions.
The point of the restrictions is to make sure the use of these things is in the best interest of a majority of the public. Aiding the production of software that is sold to the public at 900% markup doesn't really seem to be in the interest of anyone but the single company selling it.
I'm certainly not saying all software should be free or that nobody should be able to profit from government funded software. At the same time I fail to see how it is appropriate for software all taxpayers shared the cost of to be sold back to them as part of another product.
proprietary software sucks (Score:3, Insightful)
(Warning: the following post is very glib (but not really funny). It doesn't take itself too seriously so you shouldn't either.)
Proprietary software sucks. Don't take my word for it. Just read the article [slashdot.org].
I mean, after all--if the proprietary software is already buggy, if the companies charge for the tech support as well, then what is the company really providing for the user? Clever marketing? Ease of aquisition of software (can be downloaded or purchased from a store)? Easy installation?
Okay, that's it guys. If the proprietary software really does suck that much, then all the Open Source community needs to do is (somehow) run a huge marketing campain and make the auto-installers work better. The tech support might suck, and the software might be full of bugs, but that's not any different from commercial software. (at least according to that one, rather short, CNN article) The only remaining barriers are lack of knowelge from the general public and difficulties with installation.
Re:No, bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Taxes, here in Sweden, are high as hell. From what I've heard, we've got like the highest taxes in the world, end of discussion. However, we have a very high social standard. Those taxes do good. The hospitals are all owned by the state and provide a great service to the people who needs it for a much cheaper service than it would be provided otherwise. From what I've heard of USA hospitals, you dont want to get sick or hurt since they all rip you off and take every last penny. In sweden we can get sick and hurt and we STILL will be able to live a normal life economically speaking. Why is this? Our taxes.
The infrastructure has great use of our, the taxpayers money, as has the police departments, the social services departments, the schools, universities.
Socialism is good. The thought of everyone pitching in and helping those who cant for one reason or another help themselves is a good thought. As long as it is done in a democratic manner. We have a good chance of influencing the politicians which we vote for, and unlike other countries the people who gets the most votes actually do win an election. (Take that Bush!)
I wouldnt mind raising my taxes with a couple of dollars in order to help out the OpenSource evolution. Not to mention, to make it implemented more in the public services. The costs that we could do away with (licenses and MS shit) by making sure that OSS did away with windows and such in our infrastructure could be diverted to the OSS community instead and as thus help everyone out. We probably wouldnt even need a large taxraise.
I so wish that I'm able to metamoderate the parent post.