3 ms·

> annual fee for community membership Sleepycat did this https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepycat_Software https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepycat_Software and seemed

> annual fee for community membership Sleepycat did this https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepycat_Software https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepycat_Software and seemed to work out for them. But if opensource truly is infrastructure, why not nationalize it? i.e. government pays maintainers a subsistence wage (provided they meet some scale crtieria, perhaps similar to automatic royalties for pop-song airplay). Users (i.e. big corporations) would pay a levy to fund this. Of course, it could be set up privately, independent of a government.

frozenport 9y ago
Well some OSS is developed by universities and research institutes, which is a form of indirect nationalization.
- jondubois 9y ago
  That would make it unfair for indie developers... Then they'd be competing with institutions. This would actually kill open source as we know it.
  - Radim 9y ago
    You misunderstood -- the parent said this is already the case. A lot of FOSS is already heavily subsidized, from grants and tax money. No "would"s needed. And yes, it definitely makes it harder for indie developers to "compete", because these institutions run on infinite slave labour (students and postdocs). The only way to compete is on quality, which brings us back to the original "who pays for quality time" premise.
hasenj 9y ago
Because who decides what projects deserve how much? Who decides that a project is even worthy to receive anything at all? If there was such a government program, what would prevent masses of inexperienced developers to start pointless projects, open source them, and file a claim to receive money from the government?
- hyperpallium 9y ago
  > perhaps similar to automatic royalties for pop-song airplay From http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/copyright-compulsory-license.html http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/copyright-compulsory-... In order to take advantage of this compulsory license, a notice must be sent to the copyright owner along with a fee set by the U.S. Copyright Office, known as the statutory fee or statutory rate. The fee for recordings is currently (as of 2017) 9.1 cents per song (or 1.75 cents per minute of playing time). To verify the current rate, check the Copyright Office's guide to compulsory licenses. On the site, you can click “Mechanical Royalty Rate.”
- makapuf 9y ago
  Maybe we can try finding useful metrics then. And of course they could be gamed but then we can adapt and improve. By example start with number of stars on github or number of forks or even views (with verified users). Actually, we have such kind of measure, it's called advertising. It's one of the few working business models on the net but it works with a kind of bizarre tax on physical goods. Why not with a levy ? Edit: typos
kazagistar 9y ago
Infosocialism is my favorite kind of socialism, because of how artificial intellectual property rights are in the first place. Since content is so easy to copy and benefit from, why not pay for it globally rather then trying to pay for it with artifical bounderies to create a fake market of monopolies? Of course, there are lots of problems in the idea, but the ideal is solid in all its forms.

frozenport 9y ago

Well some OSS is developed by universities and research institutes, which is a form of indirect nationalization.

jondubois 9y ago
That would make it unfair for indie developers... Then they'd be competing with institutions. This would actually kill open source as we know it.
- Radim 9y ago
  You misunderstood -- the parent said this is already the case. A lot of FOSS is already heavily subsidized, from grants and tax money. No "would"s needed. And yes, it definitely makes it harder for indie developers to "compete", because these institutions run on infinite slave labour (students and postdocs). The only way to compete is on quality, which brings us back to the original "who pays for quality time" premise.

hasenj 9y ago

Because who decides what projects deserve how much? Who decides that a project is even worthy to receive anything at all? If there was such a government program, what would prevent masses of inexperienced developers to start pointless projects, open source them, and file a claim to receive money from the government?

hyperpallium 9y ago
> perhaps similar to automatic royalties for pop-song airplay From http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/copyright-compulsory-license.html http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/copyright-compulsory-... In order to take advantage of this compulsory license, a notice must be sent to the copyright owner along with a fee set by the U.S. Copyright Office, known as the statutory fee or statutory rate. The fee for recordings is currently (as of 2017) 9.1 cents per song (or 1.75 cents per minute of playing time). To verify the current rate, check the Copyright Office's guide to compulsory licenses. On the site, you can click “Mechanical Royalty Rate.”
makapuf 9y ago
Maybe we can try finding useful metrics then. And of course they could be gamed but then we can adapt and improve. By example start with number of stars on github or number of forks or even views (with verified users). Actually, we have such kind of measure, it's called advertising. It's one of the few working business models on the net but it works with a kind of bizarre tax on physical goods. Why not with a levy ? Edit: typos

kazagistar 9y ago

Infosocialism is my favorite kind of socialism, because of how artificial intellectual property rights are in the first place. Since content is so easy to copy and benefit from, why not pay for it globally rather then trying to pay for it with artifical bounderies to create a fake market of monopolies? Of course, there are lots of problems in the idea, but the ideal is solid in all its forms.