Mastodon becoming a US entity with a neoliberal board of directors and the goal of growth über alles is the issue here folks, not whether Eugen and company are compensated for their work. Of course they should be and well too. Or is that a privilege reserved only for the mediocre yes-people at the Googles and the Facebooks of the world?
Here’s a longer thread I wrote elsewhere. (1/7)
@aral Very specifically, this is a German, not an EU, fuck-up. The German tax codes defines a very narrow, and very 1950ies view of what’s a charitable cause and the Federal ministry of finances has not been moving on this point at all. Notably, other charities with political intent had their previously granted status removed (check Campact for instance).
There’s another big issue with this in general, and that’s an EU issue: There is no way to set up an EU-wide charitable cause entity. So you’d have to run 27 entities to get tax deductability (is this a word?) in the entire EU.
While it’s sad to read this, it’s absolutely understandable that they took this step. The implications … yeah, yet another Mozilla or Wikipedia foundation with questionable priorities decoupled from the actual project.
But please bash the German government and only then the EU ;-)
@aral
That’s not how that works.
@cweickhmann Yes, sadly, you’re right. It’s how it should work.
@aral No, tbh, that’s not how that should work imho either.
They way it should work is for now adding FOSS to the list of charitable causes unter §52 Abgabenordnung. Then work toward a European charitable entity (we already have the SE), say a Fundatio Europaea or (FE). The only reason we don’t have this yet, is because it was not pushed as much as the corporate SE. Once that’s there, all EU member states can extend their regulations on tax reductions for charitable causes to include FEs; and the EU could, where it’s actually collecting taxes (which are very few occasions), do so as well.
@aral @cweickhmann why?
I like Mastodon but I don't see a circumstance in which the EU should be doing special things for it - it's not that important.
And I care less about what Mastodon GmbH or it's sister companies do every month.
@davey_cakes It is in fact already a gGmbH (not a typo). So some level of charitable cause must apply. §52 refers mostly to tax deductible donations; that’s probably why they did the 503(c)(3) in the US: You can deduct your donation as a donor. In Germany (and probably lots of the EU) you cannot as of now.
Long story short: There is already a framework for this, it just needs to be adjusted to allow for FOSS to be a charitable cause; ideally EU wide, because despite its members’ habits, it’s not a Kleingartenverein. @aral
@davey_cakes @cweickhmann Yeah, CERN thought the same thing about the World Wide Web.
@aral @cweickhmann apples and trees comparison
@davey_cakes @cweickhmann *sigh* sure, you win. Have a lovely day :)
@aral In particular, imho Mastodon gGmbH should - together with other FOSS vendors and civil society entities - lobby to change §52 AO [1, 2] to include developing FOSS.
It already lists for example:
- art and culture
- life saving
- internationalism, of tolerance in all areas of culture and of the concept of international understanding
- consumer counselling and consumer protection
and, my favourite: - “sport (chess shall be considered to be a sport)” (this is not a joke: “Schach gilt als Sport”)
They are all each by themselves pretty arbitrary, and one can easily see how Mastodon touches a lot of them but doesn’t really match.
That’s also probably why it was first granted (one interpretation by the office) and then rejected (another, narrower interpretation).
[1] §52 AO english inofficial translation: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_ao/englisch_ao.html#p0441
[2] §52 Abgabenordnung, official, German: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/ao_1977/__52.html
@aral Ffs, “traditional customs including regional carnival” explicitly counts as charitable cause.
@cweickhmann It’s both. The EU could have stepped in at a moment’s notice and ensured that Mastodon was well funded and didn’t need to look elsewhere.