Why use Open Source when Microsoft products are so cheap... 10004

wrote on 2 Aug 2005 11:27:23 -0700

Is there a reason they shouldn't? :-)

Bill Gates is an American Citizen. We should help defend him against the mean ole nasty EU. They're just so petty, requiring that Microsoft allow other video media players to compete and all that.

Linux isn't a corporation. How much *should* people using Linux pay in taxes?

Here's a nasty thought: (FMV - ACQP) * 0.28 or thereabouts, depending on how old one's system is (if it's older than 18 months longterm capgains rate might apply; that's either 0.15 or 0.20 but I'd have to look -- and most software isn't that old anyway). I bought Borland C++ 4.51 some time ago for maybe $300-$500; that means that gcc + clib combination is worth at least that much. Since there is a 5% Linux Utilization and most of them have a compiler (I can't say all), and since there's about 400M PCs out there, that translates into 80M untaxed copies of gcc, or $400B in untaxed revenue, or $112B in uncollected taxes, max.

Similar logic applies to Gimp (Photoshop), Netscape-MozillaFirefox ($30-per, with the proviso that Microsoft is also liable), OOffice (going price appears to be $300, though I'd have to do a feature-for-feature comparison to get a more accurate tally), and Java (which appears to be another copy of glib-libc+, and probably worth $500-$800-unit, as it has more functionality than clbuttical C++). The total uncollected may well factor into the trillions.

And of course Windows contains NTOSKRNL.EXE, and since WindowsXP Home Edition has a list of around $200-$300, every Linux user on the planet owes about $84 in unpaid capgains tax -- for every kernel version ever downloaded, unless the user can prove that he got kernel downloads from e.g. RedHat as part of an explicit service agreement.

If one is a foreign user of Linux one may still be liable for US taxes, though I'd have to look. (It depends on which pieces were Made In The USA; older kernels came out of Finland but that was a long time back.)

I should also mention uncollected state and sales tax, as well.

Oops...that sound you heard was a cork popping out of a hole in my cheek. ;-)

OSS isn't a corporation. How much *should* people using OSS pay in taxes?

Well, GW Bush has the power and Microsoft has the money... :-)

-- It's still legal to go .sigless.