5 ms·
Petition for Recognition of Work on Open-Source as Volunteering in Germany
- mschild 8mo agoI agree with the goal but unless you create the petition using the official Bundestag website, this is about as useful as a thumbs up on Facebook. If you make a petition with the official website and it passes they have to deal with it, even if its a rejection. https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/epet/peteinreichen.html https://epetitionen.bundestag.de/epet/peteinreichen.html
- tsak 8mo agoFurthermore, this petition should be written in German as well...
- stonogo 8mo agoLike this? https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/anerkennung-von-open-source-arbeit-als-ehrenamt-in-deutschland https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/anerkennung-von-...
- throw20251220 8mo agoAlmost, still the wrong website.
- zamadatix 8mo agoI think they just meant to point out the petition was available in several languages and tsak was just using one such English versioned link, not to imply that using the main German link also solves mschild's notes. I.e. it's one thing for a petition to not be on an official government platform/process but it's a completely different type of claim to say it's not even in the country's language when it, of course, is.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- thaumasiotes 8mo agoWhat does it mean for volunteering to be "recognized" in Germany?
- kkarpkkarp 8mo agoTax exempts (I'm not a German, but I was curious about the same and this is what ChatGPT told me :) )
- guessmyname 8mo agoCertain reimbursements/allowances for volunteering are treated favorably for tax purposes if conditions are met, e.g. ehrenamtspauschale (volunteer allowance). Also, as Gemeinnützig, for tax and for issuing donation receipts. It could also function as community service hours ordered by a court (sozialstunden). Stuff like that.
- zeeZ 8mo agoIn addition to tax stuff there's a card you can get in most states, issued by cities/districts based on certain criteria, like doing a certain amount of hours per week of volunteer work, that will give you a discount or free entry to museums, pools, movie theaters, events.. There's listings online of all the institutions and businesses that give a discount.
- thaumasiotes 8mo agoFor this, and for the criminal justice use case, it seems to me that it isn't possible for "work on open source" to receive this kind of formal recognition. Anyone is free to self-certify that they're working on an open-source project headed by, and exclusively contributed to by, themselves. You'd need to formally recognize open-source projects that the German state approves of, on a case-by-case basis. And even then you have questions like "If Hans Reiser is sentenced to community service for killing his wife, can he satisfy that by working on reiserfs? How is that different from sentencing him to no punishment?"
- Mountain_Skies 8mo ago
- phendrenad2 8mo ago> Compensations could be paid tax-exempt I think this is the real killer feature here. Software companies could save money by simply open-sourcing parts of their software.
- andyferris 8mo agoInteresting. Similarly R&D tax incentives could be made to only apply if the R&D is publically available (for study, and any use)
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- vasco 8mo agoYou can already start a non profit in almost every country. If you're serious and at it for a while and have some structure. On an individual basis I don't think giving tax breaks to anyone with a chatGPT tab open makes sense.
- ggm 8mo agoI very much hope this doesn't descend into licence wars but I would think all of the BSD, MIT, ISC, hold-harmless, RAND and GNU licences qualified. If that's true and it was understood the public/commons got an outcome, I'd be in favour. If the code is under restrictive clauses, or gets tokenistic input and the quotient of time and money is spent doing something else, then I think this is a licence to cheapen out contracting rates for-profit. How does an auditor know?
- dhruv3006 8mo agothis is such a great initiative but I fear this may get exploited without proper structure.
- presentation 8mo agoYeah, I don't really want to subsidize people to work on open-source shitcoins for example. The devil is in the details here.
- palata 8mo agoI think that the problem is that "open source" in itself is not volunteering. Just like "masonry" is not volunteering, even though a mason could volunteer by building an orphanage pro bono. But when they build their own house, it's not volunteering. I don't even think that being paid for building an orphanage counts as volunteering... does it?
- ffsm8 8mo agoSubsidize? What? How are you subsidizing anything when it's just recognized as volunteering? You can at most put that on your Einkommensteuererklärung for a deduction on taxes... Calling that's subsidizing, idk man, feels massively overblown? And the Steueramt would have to agree with your statement, which I doubt it would for 99.9% of software. The exploit-ability of this seems severely overstated here, but I'm not a lawyer so maybe y'all know something I dont
- account42 8mo agoTax breaks are very much subsidies.
- 9875325996435 8mo agoA thief only looting half your house is a subsidy.
- 8mo ago
- fleroviumna 8mo ago[dead]
- on_the_train 8mo agoIt's ok to have a hobby. Not everything needs to be minmaxed to extract the maximum amount of money from the system.
- em-bee 8mo agothe question is, if we as a society want to encourage activities that are for the benefit of everyone. a sport maybe a hobby. running a sportsclub is volunteer work. writing code for fun is a hobby, publishing and maintaining it for others should be volunteer work.
- Uptrenda 8mo agoWhat work would count as valid open source work though? I assume projects that people use are obvious. But what about ones where you're just throwing up your own projects where they start out with no users or impact? Even though its open source, does it need strategic importance from the get-go? Who decides?
- zamadatix 8mo agoPrevious discussion (141 comments) which used the German version of the URL a few months back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46078770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46078770
- jaco6 8mo ago[dead]
- system2 8mo agoMany of my friends wouldn't qualify for this. They are either doing it as a hobby or to show the projects as their resume helpers.
- thaumasiotes 8mo agoWhy would that disqualify them? Those are also the reasons that people volunteer in soup kitchens.
- system2 8mo agoThe intention is to benefit financially. They are not doing it for "volunteering". But I get what you are saying. I am looking at it from a moral perspective.
- palata 8mo agoI don't think that equating all open source work with volunteering makes sense. Volunteering is defined by its charitable purpose for a public good, not by the specific skill used. Let me try an analogy: A chef who cooks a free meal for a homeless shelter is volunteering. That same chef publishing a recipe online or making a cooking tutorial is sharing knowledge, not volunteering. The act of 'cooking' or 'publishing' is neutral. It becomes volunteering only when the primary, direct, and organised purpose is to serve a charitable cause without expectation of personal gain. Disclaimer: I have been consistently doing a lot of open source in the last 10 years. I would consider none of that as volunteering.
- atoav 8mo agoBut the German word for it is "gemeinnützig" which loosely translates to "useful for the commons". So also things like helping kids with their homework or giving people courses in your hackerspace, repaircafes, reading with others can fall into that. So while maybe not all software that is open source also is automatically useful for the commons as it is now the definition is way too narrow. If you write software that helps one of the existing recognized causes it is openns source. If you write an open source photoshop or spend days working on software that keeps the world running you don't. But we need the latter people and supporting the former people makes the world a better place.
- palata 8mo ago> So also things like helping kids with their homework or giving people courses in your hackerspace, repaircafes, reading with others can fall into that. I'm guessing it doesn't count if you are being helped to help kids or give courses, does it? So not only it depends on what it is, it also depends on how it is done. Open source in itself is not charitable, and many people get paid to contribute to open source projects. My point is that I agree that some open source projects can count as volunteering, just like some masonry work. But I wouldn't say that "open source" should count as volunteering, just like for masonry.
- em-bee 8mo ago
- mytailorisrich 8mo agoI don't know if there is the concept of charity organisation in Germany but I feel this is the sort of thing that ought to be limited to registered charities not to be abused/get out of hand.
- nephihaha 8mo agoBig charities can be some of the worst for it while wee ones struggle to get off the ground with the red tape.
- rendx 8mo agoAs a German working with charities, this petition doesn't make any sense/is not specific enough to know what they actually want. There is no such thing as getting an activity recognized as volunteering. You either volunteer for a registered charity, or you don't. Nobody cares what you do for a charity, whether you write code for it or clean the toilets doesn't matter for recognition. The petition only makes legal sense if it were to ask to extend the set of charitable goals as specified in the Abgabenordnung, but the existing set already allows for FOSS projects as part of e.g. the "national education" category (public code is educative). And, to be frank, I also don't get the "recognition" part. The tangible benefits of volunteering for a charity are limited; what does it even mean to get recognition for it.
- account42 8mo ago> but the existing set already allows for FOSS projects as part of e.g. the "national education" category (public code is educative) It may be educative but that is hardly the most significant way in which open source code is beneficial to society.
- rendx 8mo agoThe context here is German law and the specific categories within the law an activity needs to be argued to fit in, not perceived or real benefit to society in a broader sense. "Adult education" is one of these categories, and it is proven to be accepted by German tax authorities for open source work. Dependent on the project, other categories might work too. The list is in Abgabenordnung §52 ( https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/ao_1977/__52.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/ao_1977/__52.html ) / Fiscal Code Section 52 Public benefit purposes ( https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_ao/englisch_ao.pdf https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_ao/englisch_ao.p... ) (Contrary to intuition, "advancement of science and research" is very hard to get accepted in unless you're a university or at least publish papers in journals. And while the law claims that in theory other purposes could be argued for, in practice tax authorities will simply stick to the list and not make exceptions.)
- 8mo ago
- nephihaha 8mo agoAs others have said, this needs to be addressed to the federal government and be in German. It also needs to specify which kind of open source work is being done and for what ends. The other problem is that if everyone works for free then most of us can't pay our bills.