zlacker

I see the danger of corporations "reimbursing" people to work on very specific plugins and extensions, that coincidentally match the requirement of the corporation, at 12€/hour to evade taxes, social security contributions and minimum wage. As a German, I oppose that petition since "open source" is a vaguely defined term, and might not be clearly seperable from commercial work.

>>little+(OP)
Open source is defined by the Open Source Initiative: https://opensource.org/osd

At least it should be. I'm not sure what definition this petition would use.

>>little+(OP)
There are usually strict requirements and checks on public services, so you can't just declare everything open source and gain the benefits. Additionally, paying a wage seems to be forbidden, only covering a certain amount of expenses, like travel costs, or I guess server-costs, is allowed. So you would need a very creative company to somehow convince people to work for them with this.

>>tovej+y
The petition should use a more restricted definition, because the OSI definition only deals with the way software is developed and distributed, not how software contributes to the common good. That a lot of open source software is foundational to how most other software is written is incidental for the OSI, but important for this recognition.

In fact I see no reason why you can't already get this recognition in the existing legal framework by creating an association with a specific scope.

>>little+(OP)
> I oppose that petition since "open source" is a vaguely defined term, and might not be clearly seperable from commercial work.

it's a petition, not a law proposal

>>little+(OP)
Aren't those kind of reimbursements usually strictly capped?

For example, if you do volunteer work in The Netherlands you can get at most €5.60/hour, with a maximum of €210/month and €2100/year. I assume Germany will have similar rules.

€12/hour is just about minimum wage. Explaining how that isn't a salary is going to be pretty much impossible - it'll rightfully be interpreted as tax fraud. On top of a violation of labor laws for paying less than minimum wage, of course.

I do see a lot of benefits, though. There are plenty of people who aren't well-off who are doing incredibly valuable work for F/LOSS project. If you're holding a conference you really want to be able to invite those people without putting the burden of travel expenses on them: a €200 train ticket can easily be a dealbreaker for a poor student.

>>little+(OP)
You make it sound as signing the petition will result directly in a law with exactly that text. It is just a petition, so that some commission on the parliament takes that idea, discuss, process it, and eventually will be integrated in a law, where all that concerns will hopefully be addressed. If you want to be sure this discussion is worked with your ideas and ideology, make sure to vote correctly in the parliamentary elections. But not asking the parliament to initiate a debate, because a term in there is “poorly” defined, seems to me, not the best way of action.

>>crote+G5
Why should "the burden of travel expenses" (lol) go away by creating a tax exemption? The organization paying for the ticket will OF COURSE still require the receipt.

>>crote+G5
I picked 12€ because I have heard of volunteers getting that. Depending on the kind of the work there can also be a fixed travel-reimbursement. I.e. donating blood gets you 20€ for roughly 60minutes of "work".

>>tcfhgj+y3
I still opose it as, "I am not signing that as I do not want to support that petition. If there was an alternating petition to cancel that in-favor petition, I would sign that."

>>little+(OP)
I don't think it'll go down as you said, but imagining if it does anyways: so what? As long as the software ends up FOSS, everyone would be able to take advantage of it, even if the corporations focus on their own uses first.

Hell, most FOSS today was created by a single individual/organization for themselves, figured it might be useful for others so they publish it under some FOSS-compatible license. That then others found it useful is the cherry on the top, not the core motivation.

>>little+Ug
Username checks out

>>little+gg
Where is this happening? AFAIK most (all?) of the EU strictly forbids being paid for blood or blood component donations outside of very specific research.

(As a donor I tried to sell blood when I couldn't afford rent and food, but it seemed impossible.)

>>little+(OP)
I don't know about Germany but in Belgium “you cannot do voluntary work for a private individual or a business.”

>>little+(OP)
Maybe, but in the US, we can't deduct "sweat equity."

I probably do hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of work, for free. It would be nice to be able to use some of that, as a tax break. It would be a drop in the bucket, compared to the monster breaks corporations get.

I would be more worried about rigidly defining "open source." We see battles on HN, about the definition of "open source." It could end up specifying something like only release of GPL-licensed code is allowed, which might seem OK, but that's sort of taking a "political" stance.

I release all my stuff MIT (usually). That's mainly because I don't care if anyone takes it, and gets rich (Fat chance, anyway. My stuff isn't that amazing), and I'm not interested in coercing anyone else to take my political stance. I just don't want some bunghole suing me for something out of my control.

>>little+(OP)
Interestingly there is a DIN standard for open source hardware https://www.dinmedia.de/en/technical-rule/din-spec-3105-1/32...

>>port11+zJ
In Germany you can get 20 Euros for blood donations (at least at the Deutsches Rotes Kreuz).

>>ChrisM+tN
Seems sensible in Europe to tie "open source" eligible for financial incentives to a European licence like the EUPL.

>>port11+zJ
Must be referring to the little money they give you for travel expenses and breakfast (so you don’t pass out) is typical in many places. But is in no way a compensation, and mixing that topics is really confusing things.

>>port11+zJ
All over Germany. As a student, I donated blood plasma which was way more lucrative (until the US banned plasma imports and killed the market). You can donate plasma more often (up to 5 times in 14 days), and IIRC I got 17€ per session, 30€ for every 3rd session, and 50€ for every 5th session. Yes, they had a consitency-reward schema going on in order to get you engaged and keep coming back. Plus, also wanted to thwart off people in financial needs that desperately need money the next day (like drug addicts).

>>asmor+Y1
> the OSI definition only deals with the way software is developed and distributed, not how software contributes to the common good

So it should be the FSF's definition of free software, https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

>>kcexn+Bf1
That does make sense.

TIL: EUPL is a thing.

Thanks!

>>fsflov+8K1
RMS famously had no problem with dual licensing. The definition should. None of the GPL licenses protect from bad stewardship focused on maintaining commercial viability of some product either.

>>little+bC1
I stand corrected. Wow.

>>port11+zJ
You can't pay for blood, only an expense reimbursement. Which is coincidentally 25 euros almost everywhere.

>>little+(OP)
How does software differ from other civic service work here and why should it differ?