8 ms·

I think there's a special niche with civic technology, the kind of public-benefit projects this is also aimed at: most European societies already have this deal

by pudo 10y ago

I think there's a special niche with civic technology, the kind of public-benefit projects this is also aimed at: most European societies already have this deal. It's public broadcasting systems. In Germany, the pot is 7.6bn per year - basically, because we believe it's a good idea to have a well-funded set of institutions in the public sphere. I'd argue that doing stuff like GPG, a web site to track bills through Parliament or some important infra isn't actually that much different. So if we can decide to get rid of an old radio station or two, there's plenty of money already allocated - it just needs to be shuffled around a bit.

cm3 10y ago
Even though the public broadcasting system started to produce more fluff content on ARD and ZDF in the last decade, they also opened a couple channels like Phoenix and ZDF Info which are aiming to reach the quality level of BBC productions. I don't know if it's just having more money and therefore the quality content growing in proportion. Either way, the original purpose of the publicly funded broadcasting service is very limited and the funds are misused for fluff. If half of the programming is similar to what you find on the US hallmark or bravo networks, it's easy to understand people's reluctance to pay the per-household mandatory tax (legally not a tax, but technically the same thing). I mean, given that people need access chips with a per annum fee for many HD channels today, I could totally get behind a scheme where the publicly funded channels are reduced to what they have to provide by law and thereby requiring just a tiny part of the funds they do now. Then either the mandatory fee is reduced or used for, as you suggested, FOSS code. Anyway, I like your train of thought. We could start by making the national tax tool open source so that there's a proper Linux port, because it's written with Qt already. GPG, due to the safety requirements and reliance in critical situations, would do well with a rewrite in a different language that can still expose a C API. For good integration of the C API (aka no GC) there aren't many languages available to build it in. Maybe ATS2 or Rust. Such a rewrite is something the GPG devs are highly unlikely to do for obvious reasons, but it's something that can be publicly funded as a long-term project.
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  They are buying the rights to the Olympics and to the World and European Cup every time, getting into bidding wars with private stations. Their argument is, that many people will stick around to watch the news in the half-time so they can fulfill their educational mandate. They could save billions buy just letting RTL or Pro7/Sat1 show sports. UEFA and FIFA restrict the material anyways, so the main difference would be more boulevard half-time news while everybody is getting up to get a new beer. They stopped showing Tour de France a few years ago, when the doping scandals hit its highs and literally nobody cares. Also - and here comes the fucked up part: Showing the events publicly on a stage was forbidden recently, since this requires another set of licensing so you have to pay to visit these stages even though every German household already paid for the license through ARD/ZDF. Fun fact 2: Austrians do not pay and can watch it anyway.
  - cm3 10y ago
    And in some countries the tax is a one-time payment included in the price of a tv, radio, etc. That's better in my opinion, and it may force them to produce just what the mandate requires, not daily soaps, game shows, all the while showing ads during the day. If we're consequent, we could easily reduce it to two channels, with an hour per day where the local news are available on an otherwise national broadcast. This is already available on the WDR feeds to some extent. One would be Phoenix++ (plus partially localized Phoenix++ feed) and the other ZDFInfo++. Most of the content is repeated anyway, so two channels with on-demand view on the website is sufficient. Game shows and other forms of entertainment are not about education and keeping the population informed via government funded channels. You might argue it's too late to change it now, but the TV landscape would quickly adjust and formats would move to other networks where they belong and are still broadcast without DRM. The whole 7.6bn/year fund being used for stuff people wouldn't actively select to pay that much for problem reminds me of the misappropriation of the road tax of 8bn/year which trucks pay on a per-km basis. 8bn should be more than enough to build and maintain public roads, but it's apparently used for other needs, all because taxes are not purpose-bound by law. What's the political solution? They're trying to extend highway taxes to private vehicles too in order to build roads. The German government is in dire need of a more logical treasury that's accountable to the electorate outside of 4-year-period-elections for misappropriation or over-/under-spending. If the roads in a city are not maintained for decades, then those paying vehicle tax and other annual fees, must have a right to refuse payment, just like they can do with their landlord. After all, taxes are payments to your national landlord, nothing else.

by pudo 10y ago

cm3 10y ago

Even though the public broadcasting system started to produce more fluff content on ARD and ZDF in the last decade, they also opened a couple channels like Phoenix and ZDF Info which are aiming to reach the quality level of BBC productions. I don't know if it's just having more money and therefore the quality content growing in proportion. Either way, the original purpose of the publicly funded broadcasting service is very limited and the funds are misused for fluff. If half of the programming is similar to what you find on the US hallmark or bravo networks, it's easy to understand people's reluctance to pay the per-household mandatory tax (legally not a tax, but technically the same thing). I mean, given that people need access chips with a per annum fee for many HD channels today, I could totally get behind a scheme where the publicly funded channels are reduced to what they have to provide by law and thereby requiring just a tiny part of the funds they do now. Then either the mandatory fee is reduced or used for, as you suggested, FOSS code. Anyway, I like your train of thought. We could start by making the national tax tool open source so that there's a proper Linux port, because it's written with Qt already. GPG, due to the safety requirements and reliance in critical situations, would do well with a rewrite in a different language that can still expose a C API. For good integration of the C API (aka no GC) there aren't many languages available to build it in. Maybe ATS2 or Rust. Such a rewrite is something the GPG devs are highly unlikely to do for obvious reasons, but it's something that can be publicly funded as a long-term project.

allendoerfer 10y ago
They are buying the rights to the Olympics and to the World and European Cup every time, getting into bidding wars with private stations. Their argument is, that many people will stick around to watch the news in the half-time so they can fulfill their educational mandate. They could save billions buy just letting RTL or Pro7/Sat1 show sports. UEFA and FIFA restrict the material anyways, so the main difference would be more boulevard half-time news while everybody is getting up to get a new beer. They stopped showing Tour de France a few years ago, when the doping scandals hit its highs and literally nobody cares. Also - and here comes the fucked up part: Showing the events publicly on a stage was forbidden recently, since this requires another set of licensing so you have to pay to visit these stages even though every German household already paid for the license through ARD/ZDF. Fun fact 2: Austrians do not pay and can watch it anyway.
- cm3 10y ago
  And in some countries the tax is a one-time payment included in the price of a tv, radio, etc. That's better in my opinion, and it may force them to produce just what the mandate requires, not daily soaps, game shows, all the while showing ads during the day. If we're consequent, we could easily reduce it to two channels, with an hour per day where the local news are available on an otherwise national broadcast. This is already available on the WDR feeds to some extent. One would be Phoenix++ (plus partially localized Phoenix++ feed) and the other ZDFInfo++. Most of the content is repeated anyway, so two channels with on-demand view on the website is sufficient. Game shows and other forms of entertainment are not about education and keeping the population informed via government funded channels. You might argue it's too late to change it now, but the TV landscape would quickly adjust and formats would move to other networks where they belong and are still broadcast without DRM. The whole 7.6bn/year fund being used for stuff people wouldn't actively select to pay that much for problem reminds me of the misappropriation of the road tax of 8bn/year which trucks pay on a per-km basis. 8bn should be more than enough to build and maintain public roads, but it's apparently used for other needs, all because taxes are not purpose-bound by law. What's the political solution? They're trying to extend highway taxes to private vehicles too in order to build roads. The German government is in dire need of a more logical treasury that's accountable to the electorate outside of 4-year-period-elections for misappropriation or over-/under-spending. If the roads in a city are not maintained for decades, then those paying vehicle tax and other annual fees, must have a right to refuse payment, just like they can do with their landlord. After all, taxes are payments to your national landlord, nothing else.