On 2/15/2018 11:20 AM, Dave Fisher wrote:
Hi -
On Feb 15, 2018, at 10:12 AM, John Hart <jh...@testra.com
<mailto:jh...@testra.com>> wrote:
The responses to this post provide convincing evidence that
OSS needs public funding (tax credits)
This is a completely different topic and many might disagree with your
conclusion. Please explain how tax credits would help in detail.
OpenOffice is downloaded into almost every country in the world. The
ASF is a non-profit under US law and donations may be tax deductible.
All business expenses are tax deductible! Correctly designed tax credits
can induce economic forces in
markets so they solve problems only evolutionary systems can. But that's
not the primary reason OSS
is needed. Without the source, it's all but impossible to determine if a
computer system is secure, and
in light of the fact power corrupts, what is evolving gets more
dangerous each day. Downloading anything
that isn't open, is like inviting a stranger into ones house. Everything
is fine until it isn't, then it's too late
to do anything about it.
There are things necessary to providing good service, programmers
donating time don't understand
and wouldn't want to do if they did, because they're mundane, time
consuming grunt work, so they
don't get done, and over time failure to do those things will undermine
the best of intention.
The details of tax credits would have to be worked out by a number of
people, I have some ideas but
discussing them is beyond the scope of my input now. What is clear now
is code can be dangerous,
and without checks and balances, disaster is all but guaranteed.
Had sun been given credit for it's contribution to OSS, it still might
exist, but companies that do what's
ethically right, have a serious disadvantage competing with companies
that don't. Tax credits are the
only way I can see to correct this problem, if you have any other ideas,
feel free to express them.
jrh
*Sun Microsystems, Inc.*_*Was*_ an American company
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_company> which sold ...
Sun was a proponent of open systems in general and acquired software
such as StarOffice <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarOffice>,...
Sun was the largest corporate contributor to open source movements in
the world.^[77]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Microsystems#cite_note-MERIT-floss-77> ,
Sun's open source contributions exceed the combined total of the next
five largest commercial contributors.
Oracle Corporation <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation>
acquired Sun <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_acquisition_by_Oracle>
for US$7.4 billion...
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer>
