Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on April 23, 2002 08:27 PM
You didn't read the article did you?
Gates are talking about different options on how publically funded projects can be licensed. That means, how can software written by students and others who are tax-dollar funded be distributed and licensed. This is about projects that taxpayers have paid for, not anything else.
1: Ofcause there is the fully commercial alternative there a company buys a project from a university (for example), this was how many high profile silicon valley area companies was funded. These companies have given many high paying jobs and has raisen the living standard a great bit in the whole US. This also affect everyone else in the country besides developers since they buy services from other companies, buys lunches, buys cars etc etc etc. You get the idea.
2: Public domain: Many publically funded projects are released as public domain with no strings attached. This gives everyone (including companies) the options of profit from it or doing whatever they want to with it. For example, SUN build their operating system on what has BSD unix (public domain) from the start, anyone else has the same posibility. I think silicon graphics also came from BSD. This has also given many high paying jobs.
Please notice that the _original_ public domain stays that way forever, it will never revert to non-public domain. Only additional work gives profitable products.
3: GPL-software: This has not given many high paying jobs to my knowledge. Infact it has and will continue to sink the IT-sector even lower than it is today.
I'm not saying one thing or the other is better and neither did Gates, he just pointed out where high paying jobs (and therefore taxes) comes from. If you don't want high paying jobs and continue farming, thats fine.
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Re:Something wrong?
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on April 23, 2002 08:27 PMGates are talking about different options on how publically funded projects can be licensed. That means, how can software written by students and others who are tax-dollar funded be distributed and licensed. This is about projects that taxpayers have paid for, not anything else.
1: Ofcause there is the fully commercial alternative there a company buys a project from a university (for example), this was how many high profile silicon valley area companies was funded. These companies have given many high paying jobs and has raisen the living standard a great bit in the whole US. This also affect everyone else in the country besides developers since they buy services from other companies, buys lunches, buys cars etc etc etc. You get the idea.
2: Public domain: Many publically funded projects are released as public domain with no strings attached. This gives everyone (including companies) the options of profit from it or doing whatever they want to with it. For example, SUN build their operating system on what has BSD unix (public domain) from the start, anyone else has the same posibility. I think silicon graphics also came from BSD. This has also given many high paying jobs.
Please notice that the _original_ public domain stays that way forever, it will never revert to non-public domain. Only additional work gives profitable products.
3: GPL-software: This has not given many high paying jobs to my knowledge. Infact it has and will continue to sink the IT-sector even lower than it is today.
I'm not saying one thing or the other is better and neither did Gates, he just pointed out where high paying jobs (and therefore taxes) comes from. If you don't want high paying jobs and continue farming, thats fine.
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