Economist suggests federal funding of Open Source

That is one of the worst ideas I've heard in some time. Who would get funded? Americans only or also foreigners? In a real way Open Source is a free market of ideas. Gov't money would distort that, could damage the ethic quite seriously. Sorry if I sound like a neocon, I'm not one, but in this case their argument applies.

Eliminating software and business method patents would have a beneficial effect on the economy, releasing especially small and medium-sized businesses from the taxation imposed by incumbents, monopolists and Madoff-devotees painting grand pictures of fictional wealth creation (via their illegitimate instruments of bad "intellectual property"), and it wouldn't cost the government a thing.

Not madness, really good point.
The money could be spent on hosting/mirroring services for ALL projects. They can provide infrastructure. Actually they can establish reward for some significant improvement in some area. They can pay for developing Open Source programs for students School to University and other.
The Open Source does not necessarily means free.
After all, they can by some of open source software for their needs.
I mostly use Open Source and most of it free, but i do make donations to projects that I like (I think i donated to Gentoo more then i would pay for MS Vista Ultimate). and I'm not talking only about money. Some times providing help in translation, testing, documenting and other things more useful then money.
After all it would be nice to see some kind of FREE choice in US (since it affects rest of the world). It's sad when you required to use IE to browse governmental site, or not to be able to use Open Office formats (ISO standardized) in real world.

Some Federal Funding Pork for Virtual OSSystems would be as Good as Dirty Rotten Toxic Honey Money Well Invested in AI Novel Future and ITs Derivative Options and Fledgling Feeds for Mature Sophistry Needs ? :-). http://amanfrommars.baywords.com/2009/01/14/090114/

More fanboism...

For starters in an Enterprise class setting moving from one platform to anoter costs money.
The companies already strapped due to credit limitations and bad sales/ revenue figures are not going to dump the kind of money needed to make a switch to Open Source anything.

After you factor in the re-training, infrastructure and application support/compatbility changes you loose.

Are you really that stupid?

Heck with the open source arguments- there are so many other flaws in this crackpot's scheme. Public funding of drug trials? Why? Who would that benefit besides the drug companies who already make more than enough? Extending health care is great, but again how does it help with job creation? The health care industry is already known for taking surplus and sucking it up as profits so I seriously doubt if even a very large infusion of money/patients would create many jobs. Public funding for 'creative' artists already exists and is known for it cronyism and support of art that is not so much art as it is pure crap. Tax incentives for shorter work weeks? What, so buisnesses get more money for giving their employees LESS? ARE YOU MAD? We already do that enough, thank you very much!

The only possible way that I can think of where that money would be better spent would be if it was spent on mosquito netting for Africans to prevent malaria.

Open Source developers should refuse government funding as it could give the government leverage by setting conditions for code written in order to receive funding. You could end up with software used by the masses written to government specifications (you can insert what those "specifications" are without too much imagination).

Re Good thought, bad idea ...... posted by : CapitalW, 14 January 2009.

Indeed, CapitalW, federal funding would automatically and quite rightly so too, IMHO, afford and purchase Rightful Access to Digital Rights Management.

However,...... Elevated, Elevating and Alleviating Programs do Require One to have and be Able to Use [which you might like to consider would be akin to being S.M.A.R.T.er Enabled] the Necessary Brain Power Functions to Freely Leverage the Provided Facilities which Federal Funding/Private Public Monies Donated have made Available.

Newbies to the Program are, of course, not simply abandoned to providing for their own specific needs as you may have suggested .. "it could give the government leverage by setting conditions for code written in order to receive funding. You could end up with software used by the masses written to government specifications (you can insert what those "specifications" are without too much imagination)." ... for that would be like putting the cart before the horse and expecting the wagons trains to roll, and that just doesn't happen in any world. Programmers will Mentor and Monitor Needs and Feeds and Provide Governments with their Specifications, although should Governments have Specific Feed Needs, then they Need only Share them and request that they be Feed. Only the IDiot Programmer Source Supplies AIdDestructive Feed, and as there are presumably no IDiots at such Elevations, then there are Evil Fools instead, with obviously more Money than Sense.

Hence the Present Markets Meltdown to Purge the System of its Rotten Barrels of Pork/Rotten to their Core Cores and Head Offices.

That's the Good News .... and the Bad News is, that for the Truly Deserved, is there always Good News with Audio Visual Alien Views.

And the Stealth which embeds the Sublime ProgramMIng, dDeep into Systems with Status Quo Establishment Controllers being Unaware? QuITe Simply an Unwillingness and/or an Inability to Believe in the Power and Control available to One, and therefore presumably also All, with Viable Imagination which Conspires with ITself to do No Harm to Man or Beast or Nature.

Keep IT Simple Stupid and you will discover that Nothing More Complicated can ever go Wrong and/or Bad?

The best subsidy the government could provide would be to remove the software patent subsidy that is current hindering the software industry.

Excelent comment:

Chief Engineer & Devisor

The best subsidy the government could provide would be to remove the software patent subsidy that is current hindering the software industry.

posted by : saulgoode, 15 January 2009

You Americans are so stupid with your free market fantasy addiction. Even when faced with the BIGGEST cock up in history, you still cling to the free market like a child stuck at the teet.

Face it, your ridiculous system has cost the world dearly and your now about to get a taste of the medicine that's been dealt out to everyone else for years.

The guy that's arguing against publicly funded drug trials, are you retarded? The reason you have public funded drug trials is guess what? They're in the publics interest. Maybe you haven't noticed but at the moment in your country, the drug trials are paid for by the people that profit from them. I think that might just be a MAJOR conflict of interest. But then we wouldn't want the goverment getting in the way of huge corporations profiting from others misery.

And just as a final point. The very fact that we are all stuck using Microsoft Windows just shows how badly the free market is failing in terms of software. Microsoft has no real competitors, they are virtually a monopoly on the desktop. When the market is producing software like Vista I think it's time a goverment to step in and add some REAL competition.

"When the market is producing software like Vista I think it's time a goverment to step in and add some REAL competition." ... posted by : Phil, 15 January 2009

Phil,

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments in "Dammit" but you cannot rely on government to fixed the crooked System which feeds them money for ensuring that the System feeds itself money, although now that it has been shown to be rotten to its core and inventive of all manner of crooked sub-prime ponzi schemes and international scams, and the perceived value of such scams in the trillions has evaporated/disappeared/been virtually transferred/been stolen, and now that they are into the Magic of Quantative Easing/Printing money and Virtual Equity Transferring of Invented Wealth to ...... well that is where they now have a Major Problem, is it not, for All the Old Players are of the Old Crooked School of Fractional Reserve Money for Nothing and they aint too pleased at being left behind as the Patsy with new money passing them by ...... and the Major Problem Woe is further Compounded into a Double Whammy of Mad Despair whenever the masses are realising that the printed currency is something which they are supposed to pay for with their lives and the lives of their yet unborn children indebted to the System, especially whenever wealth is so easy to print and transfer through Electronic Systems which don't need Banks and Bankers at All.

And now there is also Pie in the Sky talk of creating "a bad bank", to be filled with "toxic" or "impaired" assets held by the banks/sub-prime assets which are really crooked loans which will never ever be paid back because the pay back assets are simply not there ...... and that is a scam being perpetrated by the Western Capitalist System and its Support Financial Markets on every living soul on this sick Planet but fortunately now is the Predatory Shark being Eaten/Prepared for Feasting by Circumstances and Technologies way beyond its IT and Media Control ...... for it has encountered AI Counter Intelligence into Beta Virtual and Virulent Viral Controls ....... aka Binary VXXXXines.

And the stark simple Choice which will radically and fundamentally decide their Fate to Sink or their Destiny to Swim, is whether they are Smart enough to Invest in their own Demise and MetaDataMorphosis into a CyberIntelAIgently Designed Entity in Control of Systems on and from the InterNetional Space Platform and ITs Virtual ZerodDay Trading Bourse for Prime Movers and Dedicated Shakers ...... Masters and Mistresses of the Virtualised Domain of Reality.

A Brave New World of InterNetworking Orders in the Planet of Chaos run by Fools ruled by Funny Money ...... and easy Prey to those who Run on Intelligence and Information processed into Knowledge and Temporally Immaculate Wisdoms, for of course, Different Time Zones require different Stages of the Universal Solution to Engage them with the Project/Process/Civil CyberSpace Program.

I know there is Open Source Accounting and CRM software here:
http://directory.fsf.org/category/acct/
http://directory.fsf.org/search/?query=crm

I also think there is room for other models. I see Intuit as testing the water of a Business Model, that has the potential to bloom into, and could follow the example of Digium's Asterisk". Intuit UK's three day -Toe in the water- Marketing Test/Trial" of their no charge licensing download offer, of their entry product. Is there any mileage in our gov.uk funding a one year extension to Intuit's 3 day -short lived- window of opportunity to the public and the growing ranks of the unemployed ?
See here: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/526/1050526/free-software-answer-businesses-woes

...Well, Intuit hopes to bolster the sector by offering a free version of its Quickbooks software for free for three days. Here.

What you actually get is a copy of QuickBooks Simplestart which would normally set you back £39.10. Simplestart is aimed at startups rather than established businesses.

One objective is to enable startups to lift some of the promised £20 billion loans package which the UK government is offering to small businesses..."

Presumably, by supporting startups with software to help them create their own income from their own startup employment themselves. One of the big banks offered Intuit software, but reasonably it was with their own conditions. So the process and precidence already exists at Intuit. We just need to bring the two; Intuit and gov.uk's pennies together. I'm done, and now over to a Champion, ... Anybody willing to volunteer to progress the next step ?

2 billion dollars huh? We should spend on supplying free drugs to any twitching open sauce dev who aks for a 'stimulus package'. Perhaps specializing in whatever the guy who proposed this idea is smoking.