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Do they owe anything today, in the sense of a legal obligation? No. But we've regulated the tragedy of the commons in all sorts of other instances. There's no

Do they owe anything today, in the sense of a legal obligation? No. But we've regulated the tragedy of the commons in all sorts of other instances. There's no reason, for example, that a small percentage of corporate income tax couldn't be allocated to a grant program for free and open source software projects.

badsectoracula 2y ago
That's a good thought in isolation. The problem however is how are you going to ensure the money collected for that purpose go to the projects that actually need it and there wont be any corruption involved? It isn't hard to notice, for example, that in EU where gamedev companies often receive grants for various nebulous reasons tend to be companies that do not need the money in the first place (and yes, of course there are devs who received money that needed them, somehow people have to excuse the existence things they benefit from).
- anticorporate 2y ago
  I don't think you're going to solve corruption perfectly in any system, but isn't that a bit of a red herring? We manage to do this within other fields of endeavor, at least in the United States, by using an intermediary. Examples: National Science Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    It's definitely not a red herring. Software is there to do something. Art isn't. If you're spending money on software, it's to do something, and if it's the wrong thing it's a waste of people's money.
  - sneak 2y ago
    Redistributing tax money to economically unproductive (and usually worthless, as evidenced by the fact that people wouldn’t pay for it voluntarily) endeavors is a whole debate that has nothing to do with open source software. Ultimately if people value things, they will buy them. Forcing people to pay for things they don’t want to buy simply because you think it would be good for them is a special kind of tyranny.
    - anticorporate 2y ago
      > Forcing people to pay for things they don’t want to buy simply because you think it would be good for them is a special kind of tyranny. Wait until you learn where the rest of your tax dollars get spent.
carlosjobim 2y ago
That's honestly the sneakiest suggestion for implementation of communism I've heard so far in my life. Give away low quality software for free, then later demand that the government force people who want nothing to do with you or your code to pay you for your efforts. It's parasitic on several different levels. Then all FOSS hackers will be like Khrushchev, wondering why Western industry always outproduced his own, even though the Soviets "where doing everything right".
creato 2y ago
> There's no reason There definitely is a reason, and it's the same reason this problem exists in the first place: it's hard to measure the value a library or tool generates, whether it's open source or not. How are you going to allocate this tax to projects at scale? Companies already can barely solve this problem internally, and often fail completely at it. Just imagine how many times you read a comment on HN lamenting the lack of investment in IT infrastructure. The idea that you'll solve it at society scale as a government, for things much more nebulous than even IT infrastructure, is laughable.
- anticorporate 2y ago
  Grants don't need to be given on the basis of usage alone. Generally speaking, the people on a grants committee would be knowledgeable industry experts who make allocation based on a number of factors like impact, ability of the organization receiving the funds the utilize them well, the sustainability of the project as a whole, the success of previous grant projects, etc.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    This just creates a cottage industry of people who are good at writing OSS grant applications and demonstrating "progress". It also keeps incumbents in place. Central funding is the worst idea unless there really is no alternative.

badsectoracula 2y ago

That's a good thought in isolation. The problem however is how are you going to ensure the money collected for that purpose go to the projects that actually need it and there wont be any corruption involved? It isn't hard to notice, for example, that in EU where gamedev companies often receive grants for various nebulous reasons tend to be companies that do not need the money in the first place (and yes, of course there are devs who received money that needed them, somehow people have to excuse the existence things they benefit from).

anticorporate 2y ago
I don't think you're going to solve corruption perfectly in any system, but isn't that a bit of a red herring? We manage to do this within other fields of endeavor, at least in the United States, by using an intermediary. Examples: National Science Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  It's definitely not a red herring. Software is there to do something. Art isn't. If you're spending money on software, it's to do something, and if it's the wrong thing it's a waste of people's money.
- sneak 2y ago
  Redistributing tax money to economically unproductive (and usually worthless, as evidenced by the fact that people wouldn’t pay for it voluntarily) endeavors is a whole debate that has nothing to do with open source software. Ultimately if people value things, they will buy them. Forcing people to pay for things they don’t want to buy simply because you think it would be good for them is a special kind of tyranny.
  - anticorporate 2y ago
    > Forcing people to pay for things they don’t want to buy simply because you think it would be good for them is a special kind of tyranny. Wait until you learn where the rest of your tax dollars get spent.

carlosjobim 2y ago

That's honestly the sneakiest suggestion for implementation of communism I've heard so far in my life. Give away low quality software for free, then later demand that the government force people who want nothing to do with you or your code to pay you for your efforts. It's parasitic on several different levels. Then all FOSS hackers will be like Khrushchev, wondering why Western industry always outproduced his own, even though the Soviets "where doing everything right".

creato 2y ago

> There's no reason There definitely is a reason, and it's the same reason this problem exists in the first place: it's hard to measure the value a library or tool generates, whether it's open source or not. How are you going to allocate this tax to projects at scale? Companies already can barely solve this problem internally, and often fail completely at it. Just imagine how many times you read a comment on HN lamenting the lack of investment in IT infrastructure. The idea that you'll solve it at society scale as a government, for things much more nebulous than even IT infrastructure, is laughable.

anticorporate 2y ago
Grants don't need to be given on the basis of usage alone. Generally speaking, the people on a grants committee would be knowledgeable industry experts who make allocation based on a number of factors like impact, ability of the organization receiving the funds the utilize them well, the sustainability of the project as a whole, the success of previous grant projects, etc.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  This just creates a cottage industry of people who are good at writing OSS grant applications and demonstrating "progress". It also keeps incumbents in place. Central funding is the worst idea unless there really is no alternative.