Re: Tocqueville on open source development

[Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>]

At 09:03 PM 11/7/98 -0500, Eric M. Bennett wrote:
 
>In the document I just checked, he seems to be relying mostly on voluntary
>contributions from users, much as public television does.
>
>See the section "Funding Free Software" on this page:
>http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html
>
>I still think he is overly idealistic in expecting most people to give
>freely, but his rhetoric about government involvement is not as bad as I
>had remembered it being.

See "The GNU Manifesto" at

http://www.fsf.org/gnu/manifesto.html

Key quotes:

"GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of competition."

This statement acknowledges that the purpose of the Free Software 
Foundation, and what Stallman calls "GNU/Linux," is to eliminate 
competition.

"All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax: 

"Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price 
as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF 
to spend pon [GPLed] software development."

So, Stallman advocates taxing businesses -- including software publishers 
themselves -- to fund the creation of products that will unfairly compete 
with their products and drive them out of business.

Finally, he says:

"In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the post-scarcity 
world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. 
People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such 
as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required 
tasks such as legislation..."

--Brett