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 ;-)
@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.
@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.
@cweickhmann Yes, sadly, you’re right. It’s how it should work.