60 ms·

I've lately become convinced of the same thing. An idea i've had is instituting some sort of digital marketing tax (which doesn't reach consumers directly) and

I've lately become convinced of the same thing. An idea i've had is instituting some sort of digital marketing tax (which doesn't reach consumers directly) and using the money raised to directly fund open source projects (especially desktop OSS projects which have much less resources than server oriented ones). I'm thinking straight up paying for developers salaries directly as long as you can prove you are working full time on a OSS project that has a minimum user base, as long as the project is completely non-commercial. Obviously each country would only hire their citizens / permanent residents, so it can also be considered a jobs programs of sorts. 200 billion dollars were spent on advertising last year. A 1% tax would net 2 billion a year, assuming your average OSS developer will work for 150,000, that's 13,000 developers you could fund with that tax. This also avoids Mozilla type situations who need 300 million a year to develop a browser by directly paying for developers instead of funding companies which spend on marketing, executives, and god knows what else.

bruce511 5y ago
Interesting idea. But how do i A) prove I'm working on OSS full time? What is full time? 40 hours a week? 5 hours a week? I'd this govt dept gonna have to hire managers, code reviewers? B) am I govt employee? Do I get benefits? Vacation time maybe? Medical? Will the govt need to hire HR people to manage those benefits? C) how do i apply to get this job? Who evaluates my application? What if there are 26000 initial applications and 1000 more a week after that? More HR? D) how long is this contact for? Month to month? Life? Somewhere in between? Can I be fired? Who is evaluating and firing me? E) how many users is a minimum user base? A million people? What about niche software like hospitals or train operators? How do i begin to prove number of users? With a mechanism that can't be gamed? If those numbers drop can I be fired? If someone forks my project and can claim to be more popular can I be fired? How many forks of my project will the govt pay for? Is someone deciding which forks are more worth? I could go on but you get the point. Distributing 2 billion is expensive. My guess is that half or more will simply go to funding this new department. The best jobs program to come out of it will be in the new govt HR department. And recipients of this new money will get to spend half their time writing reports on what they worked on, user numbers, and all the good things dutiful employees do...

bruce511 5y ago

Interesting idea. But how do i A) prove I'm working on OSS full time? What is full time? 40 hours a week? 5 hours a week? I'd this govt dept gonna have to hire managers, code reviewers? B) am I govt employee? Do I get benefits? Vacation time maybe? Medical? Will the govt need to hire HR people to manage those benefits? C) how do i apply to get this job? Who evaluates my application? What if there are 26000 initial applications and 1000 more a week after that? More HR? D) how long is this contact for? Month to month? Life? Somewhere in between? Can I be fired? Who is evaluating and firing me? E) how many users is a minimum user base? A million people? What about niche software like hospitals or train operators? How do i begin to prove number of users? With a mechanism that can't be gamed? If those numbers drop can I be fired? If someone forks my project and can claim to be more popular can I be fired? How many forks of my project will the govt pay for? Is someone deciding which forks are more worth? I could go on but you get the point. Distributing 2 billion is expensive. My guess is that half or more will simply go to funding this new department. The best jobs program to come out of it will be in the new govt HR department. And recipients of this new money will get to spend half their time writing reports on what they worked on, user numbers, and all the good things dutiful employees do...