Re: Tax writeoff for Open Source Developers?

[Sujal Shah <sujal@worldnet.att.net>]

Brett Glass wrote:
> 
> At 06:01 PM 12/20/98 +0000, Paul Crowley wrote:
> 
> >Sorry, was the claim
> >
> >(a) that no software writing has ever been motivated by monetary reward
> >or
> >(b) that some software writing has not been motivated by monetary reward?
> 
> Stallman's claim is that money is ALWAYS secondary.
> 
> --Brett

Could you point out where he said that? 

Additionally, I don't believe that favoring the tax break means that
monetary reward is a motivation.

I mean, we get tax breaks for moving expenses, but that doesn't mean
that I'm going to move from one place to another for the monetary
reward.

To put it another way, if someone is providing a public good, it seems
appropriate for the rest of the community to reward them.  This doesn't
mean that they started the project for a tax break.  You're
extrapolating this to an extreme to try to prove your point (of how
Stallman and the GPL are evil/stupid/dumb/counterproductive/etc.).

Also, I think that at the time that Stallman founded GNU, there wasn't a
ton of money to be made in computers.  Unlike today, where people are
taking CS majors and computer classes because of the money.  I would
also believe that the latter group will be unlikely to start any free
software project, because there is no motivation (the tax credit won't
be that big a motivation... I mean, how much can a computer cost?).

My point being that I think the tax break is a good idea, if
restructered (1000 downloads are a little too low) and studied some
more.  Core people and corporations like RedHat, the core GIMP team, the
people working on GCC, etc. should be rewarded for basically providing a
public good.  THey spend a lot of their time for the benefit of many.  I
don't think downloads are a good measure, though... documenting any
other measure will tough as well.  I don't know if it's practical, I
guess is what I'm saying, but if a practical policy could be found, I
would be in favor of it.

Sujal

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