Linux to be taxed (commentary) | Hacker News Reader

Linux to be taxed (commentary)

itweb.co.za

5 pointskungfudoi10 comments

Finnish president Tarja Halonen has welcomed as "long overdue" the Dutch proposal to tax Internet users to subsidise struggling print newspapers. He says this is a perfect model for how the EU can do more to protect traditional markets and trade.

This is what scares me. Why should "traditional markets" be protected. Actually, I don't care. How can my life be considered a traditional market? I'm an upper middle class white male who has traditionally had it pretty well off, can we tax people to make sure I don't have to work hard or be smart in the future as others get better rights? It's both comedic and chilling at the same time.

"By giving people free software, open source vendors are violating their right to choose more expensive software made by European companies," says Roche. "Paid-for software is clearly superior, as any student of economics will tell you. So depriving users of the opportunity to pay amounts to exploitative business practice."

One can still choose. If I start selling cars for $1M per car, you can still buy my cars. You just probably wouldn't because they aren't likely to be worth $1M.

Microsoft's anti-competitive bundling was different. The theory behind Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior was that if they got a lock on the market, they could make it proprietary and wield that power to their own profitable ends - for example, like disallowing a flash plugin unless Adobe paid them lots of money.

Open source is different. No matter how big something might get, there's little power to be wielded. If Mozilla decided to try and pull something, it could just be forked. In fact, when Mozilla took the small step of not wanting their brands applied to versions that had non-approved patches, IceWeasel (now IceCat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_IceCat) was formed. Open source, because of the freedoms the licenses generally allow, doesn't pose the same anti-competitive, bait-and-switch threat where one can corner the market. At worst, you just fork.

I don't know even if you have noticed what the guy says: "Another of Finland's major exports, besides the Opera Web browser, is paper." - OPERA comes from Norway!

Aren't people supposed to do a research before they write?

This must be a joke. I can't imagine how anyone can say this kind of thing with a straight face.

It is, and it isn't funny, or clever. Flagged for stupidity.

Calling Linus a communist is a bit out of line. Apparently his father or grandfather was active in the party, but I've found no indication on line that Linus himself is communist. And in any case - isn't that being thrown in purely for fear-mongering?

"They cannot be expected to compete against free software," Roche argues, "in much the same way that African farmers cannot compete against free food shipments from European donors. People who say that end-users benefit from access to free or inexpensive software are missing the big picture."

It could be argued that free software actually stiffles innovation by increasing risk for software vendors and reducing revenue and rent generating opportunities for innovative software producers.

Imagine if Toyota gave away free cars or homes were free. Who would pay for them?

This is so far beyond stupid it must just be some sort of posturing. UFB.

Misleading linkbait. Flagged.

This screams "joke" all over the screan ;)

Sarcasm tag asplodes

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