I would be happy if taxes couldn't be used to pay for nonfree software. If all government servers and government office PCs and school computers had to run free software, there surely would be money to support its development.
FWIW, the goal of the still-working-to-fully-launch funding system Snowdrift.coop is to do the best we could on a voluntary basis in the absence of tax-funded free/libre/open work. Like all public goods, these things are the sort that make sense to fund through taxation, but getting political power to make that happen is even harder than a half-way effort to increase voluntary mutually-assured donations…
I'd love it if SD.C allowed users to contribute extra money each period that was banked as an endowment-like-fund and drawn on only to cover unexpected shortages.
They're doing neat things, and I'd love to see it up and running.
