🚀 go-pugleaf

Maciej Stachowiak <mstachow@mit.edu> writes:
>Axel Boldt <axel@uni-paderborn.de> wrote:
>>Maciej Stachowiak <mstachow@mit.edu> writes:
>>
>> > The original proposal I was responding to, was to have a hardware tax
>> > that would be the sole form of funding Open Source software. While
>> > money is not the sole factor for project viability, government funding
>> > of some projects would produce massive distortions in where the
>> > development effort goes.

>> Note however that this is exactly how science works. Government
>> decides what to fund, with tax money. Both capitalist and socialist
>> societies have used this model; 

>> it seems to be a clear winner in the marketplace of ideas.

No, it seems to be a clearly useful model.  It does cause distortions,
though not necessarily any worse that the distortions caused by market
forces.

>This is not the only way science works, nor has this model been widely
>in use historically. Much scientific research in the US is still
>funded by private corporations or consortia. In fact, significant
>government funding did not become a factor in US science until the 30s,
>and we had plenty of scientific progress before then.

1) In many areas of science we have gone beyond the garage tinkerer/thought
   experiment level
2) the areas of science where corporations are willing to spend
   money on basic research are limited.

Science and society is (I think) best served by having both public and 
private funding available.

I am not convinced a viable method of distributing public funding for 
software development could be worked out.

Robert
Morphis@physics.niu.edu
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