The US government, through intellectual property law and regulations that enabled a monopoly for Bell created the environment that allowed Bell to create and commercialize the transistor. They also created the regulations and the market for aircraft and computers as the largest consumer of them during the second world war.
The combination of these government interventions amongst others is what enabled the rapid development of these fields which lead to the computer revolution that we all enjoy This is an amazing thing to be sure, but it isn't an example of free-market forces at work.
It's an example of a government reading the global conditions in which it found itself in and successfully responding to those conditions by regulating and investing in key industries to ensure the dominance of the nation that the government manages. No doubt there were problems with these government interventions but they are on the whole an amazing success story for America and the world as a whole.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen didn't dream up their ideas for computing in a vacuum, they were fortunate to come of age in a time and place that gave them access to state of the art computers in their youth and later as young adults when Gates attended Harvard where they developed their BASIC on a PDP-10 that was funded by DARPA.
> Yes, I've heard the story that X was the result of A+B+C+D+E+F+G and B was done by the government, and so the government gets all the credit.
I'm not saying that the government gets all the credit here. I'm simply saying that the success story of the American tech industry is one that is the result of seeds planted by the government decades ago and one that we all enjoy the fruits of. Government regulations, investments, and purchasing contracts play a large role in why you and I can use and enjoy free software in our every day lives.
The combination of these government interventions amongst others is what enabled the rapid development of these fields which lead to the computer revolution that we all enjoy This is an amazing thing to be sure, but it isn't an example of free-market forces at work.
It's an example of a government reading the global conditions in which it found itself in and successfully responding to those conditions by regulating and investing in key industries to ensure the dominance of the nation that the government manages. No doubt there were problems with these government interventions but they are on the whole an amazing success story for America and the world as a whole.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen didn't dream up their ideas for computing in a vacuum, they were fortunate to come of age in a time and place that gave them access to state of the art computers in their youth and later as young adults when Gates attended Harvard where they developed their BASIC on a PDP-10 that was funded by DARPA.
> Yes, I've heard the story that X was the result of A+B+C+D+E+F+G and B was done by the government, and so the government gets all the credit.
I'm not saying that the government gets all the credit here. I'm simply saying that the success story of the American tech industry is one that is the result of seeds planted by the government decades ago and one that we all enjoy the fruits of. Government regulations, investments, and purchasing contracts play a large role in why you and I can use and enjoy free software in our every day lives.