Why not just go to a flat tax? We need a government for plenty of things: education, national defense, laws and law enforcement, etc. Just look at Niven's "Cloak of Anarchy" for an idea of the simple things we rely on from our government.
Steve Forbes has one proposal out there. There was also the Armey-Shelby plan. The idea is that it subtracts a constant from your income, then takes a percentage. For most plans, it is designed to virtually eliminate the median family's taxes. The effect is that the percentage tax you pay is a rising, continuous function of your income. You can play with the percentage and constants to make the tax harder on the rich or poor, or to raise or lower total revenue gathered.
The point of that system is no loopholes for anyone. Politicians can't use the system to manipulate people, only to raise revenue. There are only two or three numbers to argue over, so everyone understands the debate pretty well. Also, you don't have the government differentiating between groups-- so you have one set of rules for everyone.
I think Armey-Shelby is phased in over a few years, during which you can choose which system you pay with.
Linux might be better, though, for quickbooks pro or something similar. Small business tax software would be great for Linux, since it is such a healthy server market. You have a million 5 man operations running apache and making money, and so this would be a real boon to them.
Bazaar style only works when error conditions are verifiable (ie, when people agree that something is wrong and what that error generally is). Consumer Reports did a test where they called in to the IRS helpline, and 66% of the answers they received were wrong.
So we wouldn't know the bugs when we saw them. And we'd face the same problem every year. I suspect that this could be one of those cases where expert commercial ventures are better than a volunteer project.
The Unix/Linux community probably doesn't have enough programming-literate tax accountants to get this done. If it's platform-independent, there would be a better chance of something like this coming together.
I think the major problem is that tax legislation is very time-dependent. I'm not sure a group could form and redesign the software each year. In some years, tax laws are applied retroactively-- so you can never be totally certain. Since the federal budget is enacted in late October (even later, if there is a veto threat), that makes things very time-dependent.
Another problem is liability-- if something goes wrong, your entire user base is affected-- and would have to pay a penalty. Using commercial software, you have some level of protection (IIRC, Intuit's license actually gives the consumer some protections).
Finally, tax legislation is just plain complicated. Frankly, I'd love people to get a first-hand view of exactly what hoops we have to jump though, but if you think the source to Word is a mess, you should see the tax code.
In case anyone does feel hopeful, here's my list of things that need to happen (in order):
I am very hopeful, but some points on your solutions:
Take away corporation's ability to interfere in elections. There's a bad Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to essentially buy candidates with "soft money" and the like.
Soft money isn't what you're describing. For one thing, it is spent by parties and activist groups for voter education (including issue ads) and recruitment. That's as true for the EFF as MS's PAC. For another, you can't buy candidates or elections-- both depend on votes. Finally, this is all free speech-- saying a guy can't talk about an issue because the government department of lunch thinks your thoughts are too popular or are reaching too many people is silly.
Major tort reform: With punitive damages at the judge's discression. See above.
The goal of tort reform is fewer lawsuits, not more. That's where this stupid Leonardo lawsuit comes in-- this should never have reached court (though admittedly I don't know how the legal system works in france). Punitive damages are the worst-- they are totally arbitrary, lining a lawyer's pockets.
Pump money into the public schools: The smarter the populace, the more people who can think for themselves, the better. Better teachers, smaller school systems, smaller class sizes, more community involvement. This includes requiring decent alternative education choices for people who don't learn in the "conventional" way. While we're at it, get the fsck'ing corporations *out* of the school.
I can't see what your problem with corporations are-- it doesn't make sense to blame them for everything that happens that you don't like. I pretty much agree with your solutions on education, though. I'd add that we ought to give alternatives to kids whose schools are failing (e.g. inner city schools).
Start sending execs who break the law to prison: No fine will deter a major corporation from breaking the law. Sending the execs who cause said corporation to break the law will.
This is silly. You can't solve frivolous judicial action with more frivolous judicial action. I don't think (knock on wood) that this would have happened in the US, but we can't let anger at corporations (remember, this was the French gummint which ordered and executed this friggin' stupid raid) become the universal source of the world's problems, and the knee-jerk target for blame.
Stop and think for a moment. Every single celebrity to feature on the cover of this magazine has suffered terrible misfortune. The Times Curse has a long reach, with those it pastes on it's front cover suffering public humiliation, bankrupcy, personal disasters and even (in the case of Pricess Diana) death.
On that basis alone, I nominate socialist and geek wannabe Jon Katz as Time Man of the Year.
They're a book store. A book store. Let's get some perspective here. They have made a tremendous difference in how ordinary people view the web-- ie as a user, not as a spectator. On that basis, three cheers for them-- that's pretty important.
I may not like how they stand on this patent issue, but others are just as guilty. This is a temporary problem-- it has to be solved, but I guess I am more optimistic than most that Amazon's competitors won't just sit there and let the system be abused.
In the meantime, people who can't find the tilda on their keyboards are enjoying the web, using it to learn and have fun, and to get products they like more efficiently and without driving anywhere. And Linux and the Open Source community are making out like bandits on Wall Street. This is what we've wanted all along.
Small Business: They can't afford lawyers and months in court, and as businesses they are vulnerable to hit and run lawsuits. Small businesses and startups can be ruined by even one lawsuit. So tort reform is best for them.
Big Business: They can afford powerful legal teams. Tort reform (as proposed! Don't let the trial lawyers fool you.) stops them from using harassment lawsuits, but protects them from those same tactics against each other and their startup competitors.
Lawyers: OK, they are hurt by this. Collectively, they are the most politcally connected, powerful, and media savvy group-- that's why tort reform isn't passed, even though the lawsuits are becoming ridiculous and the damages awarded are out of control. They are the ones who say that you won't be able to sue X over Y when it is passed.
Consumers: Consumers benefit from tort reform in a bunch of ways. Part of the cost of everything we buy pays for lawyers to avoid lawsuits and defend against legal seiges. Innovation in many companies is discouraged because of a liability concern. Finally, lawsuits are now being used to pass legislation that consumers (acting as voters) don't support. If a court decides that X is going to happen (for instance, a breakup of MS, but equally possible, invalidation of the GPL) then it happens no matter what we as experts or consumers as voters decide.
The judicial branch is very important, but while we need to protect it's power and independence, we also need to stop abuses and profiteering. Lawyers (being lawyers) are great at arguing that it is 'bad for consumers and just plain wrong'-- because that is what they do for a living!
As I said, while suing to protect the GPL isn't a bad idea when it is violated, the real power of Open Source is that a free market will pick reliable, useful and free over unstable, clunky and expensive every day of the week (if it didn't, MS wouldn't be worrying so much). The moment code is stolen and resold, it loses everything that made it attractive-- it is now competing with the open source version it was pirated from-- which will be three versions ahead anyway. So, while I want to see the GPL work, it is our support of open source projects, and our contempt for developers which will keep the open source community ahead.
This is certainly a problem, I agree. I don't think we CAN enforce the GPL-- not in the current legal climate. No individual developer or group of developers-- or the FSF-- can match in dollars spent on lawyers and months spent on courtroom time the power of a potential violator-- at least not until Congress passes tort reform (and would Clinton sign it-- I think not). So we can't really rely on legalism to protect Open Source software.
But that's ok. The key element to making an Open Source product work is mindshare. Closing up the source, embracing and extending, not giving credit where credit is due-- these are tactics that are counterproductive and alienate the network effects that make Open Source so attractive for businesses.
So even if this does happen, I wouldn't worry. We should fight to stop violations, but in the end, the power of the GPL is not in its language or legalisms, but in the community and mass entrepenurism that it makes possible. Break faith with the community, and you lose the one reason to go GPL in the first place.
Or acquire third party support. And is risking a government seizure (through legislation or the courts) really what MS would do? MS is small fry compared to the Federal government. Look what they're doing to the tobacco farmers, or the gun makers, or what the courts did to Dow.
There are tons of good legal and engineering reasons to go Open Source-- so why open the question up to legislation at all? If engineers and managers decide, we'll see more adoption of Open Source, because it works better and costs less. If this goes to Congress or the President, who knows what will happen?
Besides, what happens when some great development model we haven't even thought of yet comes up? Laws take *years* to create, and decades to repeal! Open Source is a better way to make software, and in time, it will be the stubbornly closed source developers who will be begging for legislation to protect them from the market.
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Why not just go to a flat tax? We need a government for plenty of things: education, national defense, laws and law enforcement, etc. Just look at Niven's "Cloak of Anarchy" for an idea of the simple things we rely on from our government.
Steve Forbes has one proposal out there. There was also the Armey-Shelby plan. The idea is that it subtracts a constant from your income, then takes a percentage. For most plans, it is designed to virtually eliminate the median family's taxes. The effect is that the percentage tax you pay is a rising, continuous function of your income. You can play with the percentage and constants to make the tax harder on the rich or poor, or to raise or lower total revenue gathered.
The point of that system is no loopholes for anyone. Politicians can't use the system to manipulate people, only to raise revenue. There are only two or three numbers to argue over, so everyone understands the debate pretty well. Also, you don't have the government differentiating between groups-- so you have one set of rules for everyone.
I think Armey-Shelby is phased in over a few years, during which you can choose which system you pay with.
Linux might be better, though, for quickbooks pro or something similar. Small business tax software would be great for Linux, since it is such a healthy server market. You have a million 5 man operations running apache and making money, and so this would be a real boon to them.
Bazaar style only works when error conditions are verifiable (ie, when people agree that something is wrong and what that error generally is). Consumer Reports did a test where they called in to the IRS helpline, and 66% of the answers they received were wrong.
So we wouldn't know the bugs when we saw them. And we'd face the same problem every year. I suspect that this could be one of those cases where expert commercial ventures are better than a volunteer project.
The Unix/Linux community probably doesn't have enough programming-literate tax accountants to get this done. If it's platform-independent, there would be a better chance of something like this coming together.
I think the major problem is that tax legislation is very time-dependent. I'm not sure a group could form and redesign the software each year. In some years, tax laws are applied retroactively-- so you can never be totally certain. Since the federal budget is enacted in late October (even later, if there is a veto threat), that makes things very time-dependent.
Another problem is liability-- if something goes wrong, your entire user base is affected-- and would have to pay a penalty. Using commercial software, you have some level of protection (IIRC, Intuit's license actually gives the consumer some protections).
Finally, tax legislation is just plain complicated. Frankly, I'd love people to get a first-hand view of exactly what hoops we have to jump though, but if you think the source to Word is a mess, you should see the tax code.
In case anyone does feel hopeful, here's my list of things that need to happen (in order):
I am very hopeful, but some points on your solutions:
Take away corporation's ability to interfere in elections. There's a bad Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to essentially buy candidates with "soft money" and the like.
Soft money isn't what you're describing. For one thing, it is spent by parties and activist groups for voter education (including issue ads) and recruitment. That's as true for the EFF as MS's PAC. For another, you can't buy candidates or elections-- both depend on votes. Finally, this is all free speech-- saying a guy can't talk about an issue because the government department of lunch thinks your thoughts are too popular or are reaching too many people is silly.
Major tort reform: With punitive damages at the judge's discression. See above.
The goal of tort reform is fewer lawsuits, not more. That's where this stupid Leonardo lawsuit comes in-- this should never have reached court (though admittedly I don't know how the legal system works in france). Punitive damages are the worst-- they are totally arbitrary, lining a lawyer's pockets.
Pump money into the public schools: The smarter the populace, the more people who can think for themselves, the better. Better teachers, smaller school systems, smaller class sizes, more community involvement. This includes requiring decent alternative education choices for people who don't learn in the "conventional" way. While we're at it, get the fsck'ing corporations *out* of the school.
I can't see what your problem with corporations are-- it doesn't make sense to blame them for everything that happens that you don't like. I pretty much agree with your solutions on education, though. I'd add that we ought to give alternatives to kids whose schools are failing (e.g. inner city schools).
Start sending execs who break the law to prison: No fine will deter a major corporation from breaking the law. Sending the execs who cause said corporation to break the law will.
This is silly. You can't solve frivolous judicial action with more frivolous judicial action. I don't think (knock on wood) that this would have happened in the US, but we can't let anger at corporations (remember, this was the French gummint which ordered and executed this friggin' stupid raid) become the universal source of the world's problems, and the knee-jerk target for blame.
Stop and think for a moment. Every single celebrity to feature on the cover of this magazine has suffered terrible misfortune. The Times Curse has a long reach, with those it pastes on it's front cover suffering public humiliation, bankrupcy, personal disasters and even (in the case of Pricess Diana) death.
On that basis alone, I nominate socialist and geek wannabe Jon Katz as Time Man of the Year.
They're a book store. A book store. Let's get some perspective here. They have made a tremendous difference in how ordinary people view the web-- ie as a user, not as a spectator. On that basis, three cheers for them-- that's pretty important.
I may not like how they stand on this patent issue, but others are just as guilty. This is a temporary problem-- it has to be solved, but I guess I am more optimistic than most that Amazon's competitors won't just sit there and let the system be abused.
In the meantime, people who can't find the tilda on their keyboards are enjoying the web, using it to learn and have fun, and to get products they like more efficiently and without driving anywhere. And Linux and the Open Source community are making out like bandits on Wall Street. This is what we've wanted all along.
I'd actually rank it this way:
Small Business: They can't afford lawyers and months in court, and as businesses they are vulnerable to hit and run lawsuits. Small businesses and startups can be ruined by even one lawsuit. So tort reform is best for them.
Big Business: They can afford powerful legal teams. Tort reform (as proposed! Don't let the trial lawyers fool you.) stops them from using harassment lawsuits, but protects them from those same tactics against each other and their startup competitors.
Lawyers: OK, they are hurt by this. Collectively, they are the most politcally connected, powerful, and media savvy group-- that's why tort reform isn't passed, even though the lawsuits are becoming ridiculous and the damages awarded are out of control. They are the ones who say that you won't be able to sue X over Y when it is passed.
Consumers: Consumers benefit from tort reform in a bunch of ways. Part of the cost of everything we buy pays for lawyers to avoid lawsuits and defend against legal seiges. Innovation in many companies is discouraged because of a liability concern. Finally, lawsuits are now being used to pass legislation that consumers (acting as voters) don't support. If a court decides that X is going to happen (for instance, a breakup of MS, but equally possible, invalidation of the GPL) then it happens no matter what we as experts or consumers as voters decide.
The judicial branch is very important, but while we need to protect it's power and independence, we also need to stop abuses and profiteering. Lawyers (being lawyers) are great at arguing that it is 'bad for consumers and just plain wrong'-- because that is what they do for a living!
As I said, while suing to protect the GPL isn't a bad idea when it is violated, the real power of Open Source is that a free market will pick reliable, useful and free over unstable, clunky and expensive every day of the week (if it didn't, MS wouldn't be worrying so much). The moment code is stolen and resold, it loses everything that made it attractive-- it is now competing with the open source version it was pirated from-- which will be three versions ahead anyway. So, while I want to see the GPL work, it is our support of open source projects, and our contempt for developers which will keep the open source community ahead.
This is certainly a problem, I agree. I don't think we CAN enforce the GPL-- not in the current legal climate. No individual developer or group of developers-- or the FSF-- can match in dollars spent on lawyers and months spent on courtroom time the power of a potential violator-- at least not until Congress passes tort reform (and would Clinton sign it-- I think not). So we can't really rely on legalism to protect Open Source software.
But that's ok. The key element to making an Open Source product work is mindshare. Closing up the source, embracing and extending, not giving credit where credit is due-- these are tactics that are counterproductive and alienate the network effects that make Open Source so attractive for businesses.
So even if this does happen, I wouldn't worry. We should fight to stop violations, but in the end, the power of the GPL is not in its language or legalisms, but in the community and mass entrepenurism that it makes possible. Break faith with the community, and you lose the one reason to go GPL in the first place.
Or acquire third party support. And is risking a government seizure (through legislation or the courts) really what MS would do? MS is small fry compared to the Federal government. Look what they're doing to the tobacco farmers, or the gun makers, or what the courts did to Dow.
There are tons of good legal and engineering reasons to go Open Source-- so why open the question up to legislation at all? If engineers and managers decide, we'll see more adoption of Open Source, because it works better and costs less. If this goes to Congress or the President, who knows what will happen?
Besides, what happens when some great development model we haven't even thought of yet comes up? Laws take *years* to create, and decades to repeal! Open Source is a better way to make software, and in time, it will be the stubbornly closed source developers who will be begging for legislation to protect them from the market.