🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mon, 12 Oct 1998 02:07:06 GMT, Decklin Foster <decklin@base.org>
wrote:

>darrow@oneillaw.com (M O'Neill) writes:
>
>> So we get down to this:  private enterprise should not have the right
>> to create and profit from software.  Instead, we should impose a tax
>> and let the government decide what software gets produced.
>
>This is the exact opposite of what I had been advocating. Let the
>people decide what software *they* want; not the goverment, and most
>certainly not software publishing companies. 

I just don't get it.  If the government collects the taxes, then the
government decides who gets paid for writing software.  If you don't
think this means the government chooses what gets written, you're
naive.  

I hate to tell you this, but the people already choose what software
gets written.  This can only happen so long as the purchaser of
software votes with his dollars by buying directly from the sellers of
software.  Put politicians in the middle, and it's a guaranteed
disaster and can only increase the cost and reduce the quality.


>The funding aspect only
>means that we require the money that would have otherwise fed these
>companies go to people actually writing things. 

and who decides who the "people actually writing things" are?

>Do we have do this?
>No, it's only a suggestion. But as a social contract it would allow us
>to get rid of proprietary software more easily. We can still work on
>that without funding, which will probably happen, as people are always
>resistant to change.
>

so let's force them to change.


>-- 
>please read: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
>"cry me a bayou/and i'm leaving..." -tricky