French politicians want to tax tablets for not running Windows

[Christopher Chan]

On Tuesday, January 04, 2011 06:53 AM, Nathan Bahn wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 4:29 PM, Doug Pollard <dougpol1 at verizon.net
> <mailto:dougpol1 at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
>     On 01/03/2011 02:38 PM, Avi Greenbury wrote:
>
>         Nathan Bahn wrote:
>
>             Attention all--
>
>             I can't help but get the impression that French legislators
>             and M$
>             lobbyists are joined at the hip.  I could be wrong, of
>             course.....
>
>         I'm reminded of the advice to not ascribe to malice that which may
>         explained by incompetence.
>
>         It's worth noting, too, that the distinction is between mobile
>         operating system and 'PC' operating system. That is, Windows 7 is as
>         taxable as OSX or, say, Ubuntu. It's Windows Mobile 7 that's not
>         deemed
>         taxable (being a mobile system) and I'd imagine iOS is similarly
>         excluded.
>
>         The distinction is, obviously, harder to draw with Linux which is so
>         portable by design, and has no need for a distinction between
>         'mobile'
>         and 'PC' editions.
>
>         I've not yet seen anything that refrains from sensationalism by
>         enough
>         to really understand what's going on here, though. Just a lot of
>         exclamation that the French government is out to destroy Linux or
>         something.
>
>
>       I am skeptical of the whole thing.  Most of the time Governments
>     pick out the underdog and take from the wealthy for the poor to
>     garner votes.  Why would they side with big bad Microsoft,  there is
>     no glory in that.  Sounds like one more Internet cry of wolf at the
>     door.                   Doug
>
>
>
>
> D.P.--
> Please tell me that you're joking; irony doesn't translate very well to
> the written word.
> --N.B.

He lives on a different planet. Over here in Hong Kong, the legislators 
make a lot of noise, say that something needed doing and then wait for 
the public to forget. Just like the recent noise about making property 
developers be more 'transparent' which ended up with nothing being done.

Things are slowly going rotten over here but people do notice. I had an 
elderly person tell me that things were much better when the Brits were 
still governing the territory. You'd never see rust in the pipes he 
said. You'd get much more efficient service too he said. But then that 
is only because they were being scrutinized a lot more so public 
services had to look the part. Even so, they still managed to get some 
secret deal with big companies like property developers going. Of 
course, I cannot say for sure that the governor then had anything to do 
with it but either way, no matter how good the intentions of individuals 
even if they are in charge, they just cannot fix human governments.

A government taking from the wealthy for the poor? That would be the 
exception, not the rule. Even here in Hong Kong where you might get some 
semblance of taking from the wealthy in the form of scaling property 
taxes and income taxes, it mostly serves to just build up the government 
treasury. Very little of the yearly surplus is given to the poor. BTW, 
the Hong Kong government does not need votes. Funny how this one kinda 
does what Doug is saying but those that get voted in don't. Must be the 
fact that it is still under scrutiny although by a different combination 
of eyes.