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> that would put a lot of obligation on the vendor to honor some kind of contract they don't need to do today. They can change anything they want with zero cos
by gspr 5y ago
> that would put a lot of obligation on the vendor to honor some kind of contract they don't need to do today. They can change anything they want with zero cost today.
So why can't we just allow them to keep making those changes, but still have to document them? I'm sure they document them internally anyway.
- londons_explore 5y agoWe could have a tax on documents which are non-public. For example, the tax could be 1 cent per page per day which is non-public. It would apply to source code, images, or anything else that might be reasonably printed on a page. Then companies could pay the government to keep their employees work secret, or publish it. It should help innovation as far more work done by humans gets made available for others to build from.
- gspr 5y agoThat's an interesting idea! Do you know if anyone has explored this further?
- varispeed 5y agoIt will only make products more expensive and less accessible and people still won't be able to fully use _their_ devices.
- londons_explore 5y agoExcept it won't - companies which are fully open source won't have any additional costs, and their products can be priced the same as normal. It's only companies who have fully closed tech will have to pay the tax, and really that tax is compensating the rest of the country for the work and knowledge that company wants to keep secret.
- gspr 5y agoThat might happen to some products, yes. No different from any other tax. I don't see a fundamental problem.