Path: utzoo!telly!attcan!utgpu!watmath!uunet!algor2!jeffrey
From: jeffrey@algor2.uu.net (Jeffrey Kegler)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Software Tax: how and why?
Summary: Just when you thought it was safe to pay taxes ...
Message-ID: <1989Aug16.114825.23867@algor2.uu.net>
Date: 16 Aug 89 11:48:25 GMT
References: <3674@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> 
Reply-To: jeffrey@algor2.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler)
Organization: Algorists, Inc.
Lines: 60

I think the software tax would be a terrible idea.  Reasons:

1) The tax would be largely wasted.  The big companies would make a
fortune off of it.  It would be the best news for them in years.
Their low productivity would not be a disadvantage any longer, because
the tax would compensate them for costs.  If any regulations are made
to prevent the large low productivity shops from using this tax as a
subsidy for inefficiency, they would backfire.  Regulation would
impose far more of a burden on the small software house or FSF-type
organization than on the corporate giants.  Adding a layer of
bureaucracy to work around a set of regulations is what the biggies
are good at.

2) The tax would not simply be wasteful, but create an industry and a
bureaucracy hostile to creative software people, and who have a vested
interest in making it impossible for them to work.  A industry would
form itself around this tax.  The situation where people writing free
software are only those who have strong motivations to do so would
disappear.  A host of entrepreneurs would spring up whose skill in
life is getting a share of this tax fund.  Almost certainly, these
people will neither have the skill or inclination to write wonderful
software.  This industry and bureaucracy will control the purse
strings and fund as little real programming as possible, and then only
from those programmers who create the fewest troubles for them.
Strong-willed, creative types, like RMS, wil not be long tolerated by
them.  A long as people like him are working anywhere, they constitute a
challenge to the low tech types.

3) Bad ideas in the form of taxes are a lot worse than other bad
ideas, because the tax is backed by force, while a bad business
relationship is voluntary.  The skill of low tech types in finding
angles to make money off the computer business always astounds me.
Headhunters are a prime example.  However, relationships with
headhunters, unlike the tax are voluntary.  While you would be forced
to pay the tax, you are not forced to use a headhunter.

4) Once started the tax will prove very hard to repeal.  Given any
sort of foot in the door, the low tech types will bring their next
skill to bear--lobbying.  The tax on the computer business for the
benefit of the low tech types will be promoted by well lobbied
Senators and Congressmen as a scared right, an investment in a high
tech future, a defense against Japanese competition and Soviet
aggression and so on.  Of course, the law will be tweaked for the
benefit those doing the most effective lobbying.  These will not be
the people writing the best free software.

A software tax will be something we all regret in realtime.  It will
create an industry and bureaucracy we will come to despise.  Think of
intellectual property rights as a software tax, which is really what
they are.  Only intellectual property rights are not forced on
anyone--you do not have to buy software (though you might have damn
little choice).

If you don't like intellectual property rights you will hate a
software tax.
-- 

Jeffrey Kegler, Independent UNIX Consultant, Algorists, Inc.
jeffrey@algor2.ALGORISTS.COM or uunet!algor2!jeffrey
1762 Wainwright DR, Reston VA 22090