• RandomSomeone
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    -33 years ago

    Imagine, for example, an open-source software license that ensured that when used by a company, the highest paid employee of that company could not earn more than 100x the lowest paid employee, or a license that ensured that half of the profits produced by the software were distributed evenly among the employees of that company. Imagine a license which dictated that profits gained from the software had to reflect price reductions for consumers

    So some kind of socialism. No thanks.

    This is much simpler: as users, we should be able to own the software we have (whether we bought it or not). This is non-negotiable. When you buy a car or a washing machine, you can take the whole thing apart and fix it if you want to. Software should be no different, and therefore, the intruder here is proprietary software, a privilege, a concession that is given to all of us but completely undermines the market. That is the root problem.

    • poVoq
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      43 years ago

      “Socialism” as in Japan (CEOs earn much less there), or the US start-up culture (stock options are usually part of the salary)? Its really funny how people think something is “socialism” even though it is a widely used practice in capitalist societies.

      That said… you can not enforce this with software licenses.