A proposal for an open source tax credit [LWN.net]

A proposal for an open source tax credit

Posted Mar 19, 2006 3:07 UTC (Sun) by welinder (guest, #4699)
Parent article: A proposal for an open source tax credit

Believe it or not, there are problems in this world that do not have
to be addressed through the tax code!

If the government should decide that free software would be good for
the economy -- and IMHO it ought to figure that out one day -- then
it should simply commission some work to be done.

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A proposal for an open source tax credit

Posted Mar 19, 2006 17:25 UTC (Sun) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link]

[Believe it or not, there are problems in this world that do not have
to be addressed through the tax code!]

I agree 100%. However, until the powers that be seriously simplify the code, why shouldn't what's good for the goose be good for the gander?

Mind you, off the top of my head, I think the best thing the government could do for free software is to require that all software purchased by the government or receiving government funding be released under a GPL compatible copyleft licence.

all the best,

drew

Long overdue

Posted Mar 19, 2006 23:39 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Yeah, that would be fantastic -- and also a quite logical thing for a government to do. I would bet governments get comprehensive specs to everything they buy; building plans, electrical wirings, electronic circuit specifications. Why not for software, why buy opaque boxes? How could government procurement procedures allow this for so long? It's a long overdue move.

And however when support for a open format for documents is required in a US state, they get into a big mess. It's incredibly blind.

Long overdue

Posted Mar 20, 2006 0:03 UTC (Mon) by vmole (guest, #111) [Link]

I would bet governments get comprehensive specs to everything they buy; building plans, electrical wirings, electronic circuit specifications.

Guess again.

After all, that would be government confiscation of valuable intellectual property - might as well be Communists! Never mind if it was developed on government funding -- i.e. your money and mine.

As an example, consider the uproar over voting machine software, and the objections of the companies that wrote it against letting anyone see it.

Long overdue

Posted Mar 20, 2006 9:52 UTC (Mon) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link]

The federal government (in the U.S.) does require source code to any critical software they buy. Of course even source code is of limited utility after a few years...

Long overdue

Posted Mar 20, 2006 10:59 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

If this source code is provided but cannot be disseminated then it is certainly of limited use. It is hard to imagine anything similar happening to e.g. government buildings -- that the government receives the blueprints but cannot provide them to other contractors.