Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

We could have a tax on documents which are non-public.

For example, the tax could be 1 cent per page per day which is non-public.

It would apply to source code, images, or anything else that might be reasonably printed on a page.

Then companies could pay the government to keep their employees work secret, or publish it.

It should help innovation as far more work done by humans gets made available for others to build from.



It will only make products more expensive and less accessible and people still won't be able to fully use _their_ devices.


Except it won't - companies which are fully open source won't have any additional costs, and their products can be priced the same as normal.

It's only companies who have fully closed tech will have to pay the tax, and really that tax is compensating the rest of the country for the work and knowledge that company wants to keep secret.


That might happen to some products, yes. No different from any other tax. I don't see a fundamental problem.


That's an interesting idea! Do you know if anyone has explored this further?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: