>> When I talk about capitalism, I mean private business.
It's interesting that what we call a 'public corporation' today isn't actually public at all - I'm pretty sure that Richard Stallman considers public corporations as being 'private business'.
A big problem with so-called public corporations is that there is not enough fluidity in terms of ownership for them to be called 'public'. The majority of shares move between a very small percentage of wealthy investors which represent an even smaller percentage of the general public.
It would be good to see a capitalist system where there is more fluidity over the ownership of shares of companies. Also, it would be nice to see public companies release all their code in the public domain under the GPL license.
I think that cryptocurrencies could make these things possible because they solve the financial incentive problem which has plagued free software. I think that it's now possible to create free software in the public domain in such a way that people can profit from it significantly but not in quite the same permanent way as we're used to with shares of corporations.
It's interesting that what we call a 'public corporation' today isn't actually public at all - I'm pretty sure that Richard Stallman considers public corporations as being 'private business'.
A big problem with so-called public corporations is that there is not enough fluidity in terms of ownership for them to be called 'public'. The majority of shares move between a very small percentage of wealthy investors which represent an even smaller percentage of the general public.
It would be good to see a capitalist system where there is more fluidity over the ownership of shares of companies. Also, it would be nice to see public companies release all their code in the public domain under the GPL license.
I think that cryptocurrencies could make these things possible because they solve the financial incentive problem which has plagued free software. I think that it's now possible to create free software in the public domain in such a way that people can profit from it significantly but not in quite the same permanent way as we're used to with shares of corporations.