Stallman is too vague (was Re: Tocqueville on open sourcedevelopment)

["Eric M. Bennett" <ericb@pobox.com>]

James wrote:

> Brett wrote:
>
>> See my subsequent message, which must have crossed in the ether with
>> yours. As you'll see from it and from the document I reference there, he
>> has not only said these things -- he has posted them on the Web for the
>> world to see. It may be hard for some who do not know him to believe that
>> he goes this far.  But then, Richard himself admits that his views are
>> extreme.
>
>   Post to the list the language where he says that the government
>should fund the development of government written software that would
>eliminate all or most commerical software.

>From what I have (re)read this evening, it is difficult to tell exactly how
much funding Stallman wants to come from the government and how much he
wants to come from voluntary contributions from the users of free software.
It should be fairly obvious that he does not want all of it to come from
the government.

I still think it is fair to say that Stallman wants to kill traditional
development models, but in part he wants this to happen in the context of a
free market: he thinks users will recognize the value of free software and
voluntarily contribute to its development.  This would kill the traditional
commercial development model.  He mentions this in the document that Brett
quoted previously:

"People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware, asking for
donations from satisfied users, or selling hand-holding services. I have
met people who are already working this way successfully.  Users with
related needs can form users' groups, and pay dues. A group would contract
with programming companies to write programs that the group's members would
like to use."

Personally, I think he ought to check up on the number of people who use
shareware without paying a cent for it.  Most people don't pay unless they
can't get the product initially without forking over $$$.  That's just
human nature.  A few of the more idealistic or honest people who register
their shareware support more numerous leeches who use the programs for
months or years and pay anything. That is why commercial developers make
you pay before you get the software, and in addition I suspect it is why...

...Stallman also supports forcible "contributions" via a software tax.  The
question is, *how much* should be government funded?  This is a critical
question.  I haven't seen any documents where Stallman addresses this
question.  I suppose Stallman's enemies assume that he wants to impose as
much tax as necessary to achieve his goal of killing of traditional
development (the less money that's contributed voluntarily, the more he is
willing to collect via a tax), and his defenders will say that he does not
support this method.  But I don't see a statement from him on this subject
one way or the other, so both statements are pure conjecture as far as I
can tell.  Any references to the contrary would be welcome.

Personally, I have no problem with the government funding basic research
that leads to the development of new services, greatly improved services,
or new types of software.  Things like NCSA Mosaic and Internet II fit into
this category.  But I don't think the government should be spending money
developing an open-source knockoff of Word and Excel just to put Microsoft,
Corel, and Lotus out of business.



--
Eric Bennett (http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/)
Cornell University, Field of Biochemistry
377 Olin Chemistry Lab

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