[Gllug] BBC Open Source

[David Damerell]

On Thursday, 14 Jul 2005, Sean Burlington wrote:
>David Damerell wrote:
>>On Thursday, 14 Jul 2005, Sean Burlington wrote:
>>It makes a big difference to someone who can afford the fine (and the
>>fee) but decided not to pay it, because they don't go to prison. An
>>example of such a person might be someone who decided to boycott the
>>license fee, as in the discussion here.
>OK - maybe I trimmed a bit heavily - but the discussion had moved to
>"the majority of female prisoners in the UK"

No, that's not correct; that was an aside (which happens to be bogus)
in the ongoing discussion of what we could do about the BBC's Open
Source woes. 

>>>If the BBC was paid for out of direct taxation would anyone be worse off?
>>Yes; we would. Making it awkward for the Government to control the BBC
>>is a great benefit of the current system (although sadly that lack of
>>control has been eroded to a degree); anything that replaced the
>>current hypothecated tax would have to be carefully constructed.
>I'm not sure that the BBC are all that independent

So you think we should exacerbate that situation?

>on the other hand - most of the harm of the current system could be
>removed simply by providing some income based cut off point for the
>current tax

There are many ways the current situation could be improved. We could
fund the BBC from general taxation, but require that, inflation aside,
changes to that funding be supported by a majority of the MPs of the
three largest parties in Parliament (ie, each party polled
individually), or something. But we can't get there from here; we
haven't had, in my lifetime, a Government public-spirited enough to
change BBC funding without further eroding their independence.

-- 
David Damerell <damerell at chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Chedday, Presuary.
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