Note that there is some flaw to #3 to #2 even when public funding is involved. Many patents were born that way. This abomination should of course stop yesterday. Because right now, the flow from #3 to #1 is smaller than it has rights to be.
Destroying #2 doesn't have to choke off the flow from the impossible to the possible, if adjust our society around it. Stuff like ending capitalism may do. (Of course, let's not do USSR "communism", it obviously didn't work. To be honest, I'm not sure what a good solution should look like. But I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve mega-corporations that own more money than entire nation-states.)
I honestly cannot tell exactly what the parent comment is referring to with #1 #2 #3, but a mutual change of societal incentives for writing software enabled by Free Software is what RMS suggested in the GNU Manifesto:
"In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the postscarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming"
In response to “Programmers need to make a living somehow.”
> All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax:
> Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF to spend on software development.
Just what software needs. A bunch of politics to decide who gets funded and who doesn't
In response to “Won't everyone stop programming without a monetary incentive?”
We get
> What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned.
So the GNU solution is to ban making money from software. Hmmm
No. That's a misreading, and you're taking it out of context. The GNU solution there is to ban proprietary software companies doing their thing (those companies happen to be high-paying as a consequence of doing what Stallman thinks should be banned).
It's a reasonable point, if your ethics are such that what the high-paying software companies do is, on the face of it, unethical. Sure, the ethical software producers might make less money, but that's not the same thing. Mind you, after banning the unethical ones, they might make more than they did before.
For the analagous argument, everyone agrees that pre-1860, the highest-paying cotton producers in the USA should have been banned - not because they were the richest, but because of what they did to become the richest.
WRT the second one, shouldn't we be free to write closed source software?
The list at the beginning: things you can do (#1), things you're not allowed to do (#2), things that are still in the great unknown (#3). Hadn't realized that was confusing, thanks.
In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the postscarcity world
This both is putting the cart somewhat before the horse, and works better by increasing category #1 (what you can do) rather than destroying category #2 (what you're not allowed to do).
So should we limit companies that operate at a global scale to revenue or profits to that of the worlds smallest nations? Where do you draw your line? Or do you limit companies from ever operating at the scale that many of them do? What has permitted them to get so big in the first place and is that a good or bad thing?
I disagree with this.
There are things you can (are allowed to) do, things you know you can't do, and things that are inconceivable / impossible.
His position is that #2 is evil (because knowing you could fix that printer driver if only you were allowed to is fucking annoying), and there is a moral duty to minimize it.
I think that #1 is good and should be maximized, and there is very little practical difference between #2 and #3. Minimizing #2 at the expense of also reducing #1 is bad and harmful.
In practice, there is a flow of things from #3 to #2 to #1. Things are moved out of the impossible with funds from paying customers, and then made open by people re-implementing them once the hard exploratory part is done.
There is also a smaller flow of things directly from #3 to #1. Some research is publicly funded or due to individual curiosity, instead of corporate internal. Some kinds of products can be funded from support instead of initial sales.
Destroying category #2 would choke off the first, much larger, flow. The second would not be able to make up the difference. This result would be good according to Stallman's ethics / priorities. I think it would be bad.