[Gnu-arch-users] [OT] funding free software R&D

[Tom Lord]

    > From: XXXXXXXX

    > > [quoting my web pages:]
    > > I don't think this is how free software R&D should really be 
    > > funded -- but realistically, that's how it _is_ funded for now. 

    > How do you think it ought to be funded?

I am not a radical libertarian.   Some radical libertarians I have met 
propose that some things we regard as public services, such as
firefighting and policing, would be better if privatized.

That can lead to some strange results.  For example, if I subscribe to
a firefighting service, and my neighbor doesn't, the service I
subscribe to might wind up putting out a fire at my neighbor's house
as a kind of "preemptive strike" -- to keep the fire from spreading to
my house.

Free software is sometimes described as a "non-rivalrous public
good".   Conventionally, provision of such goods is the business of
government.   So a first cut is: perhaps free software R&D should be
paid for by tax money?    

But I don't believe that, for the _most_ part, using tax money for
free software R&D is the long term solution:

Although free software is a non-rivalrous public good,  it's also more
than that.   Companies like IBM and RedHAT and SuSE and Mandrake and
HP and Oracle and others are demonstrating that the "commons" of free
software enables business growth.   Now it's true that firefighting
also enables business growth -- but in the case of free software, the
relationship and the profit incentive for technological progress is
much greater.

So while I don't agree with my radical libertarian friends that
firefighting is best if privatized, I tend towards believing that the
production of free software R&D should be.

I like the idea of having, say, O(100) labs that operate on a
"subscription" basis.  Their primary work-product is, of course, free
-- but there's plenty of room for them to give advantage to their
subscribers.

In short, I think that companies like those listed above should, in
effect, just give people like me a bunch of money.

-t