cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/58956734
Germans are great. Especially when they do nice things.
A lot of German people contribute to open-source projects in their spare time – unpaid, often for years. And yet, under Germany’s tax law, this work is not recognized as volunteer work (Ehrenamt) – unlike club work, youth work, or emergency services.
A petition to the German Bundestag’s petitions committee is calling for equal treatment.
Concretely, this would mean:
🔴 Tax-free expense allowances (Ehrenamts-/Übungsleiterpauschale)
⚪ Easier non-profit status (§52 AO) for open-source projects
🟢 Better liability protection for open source maintainers (analogous to §31a BGB)
🔵 Legally secure donation receipts and cost reimbursement
This would be a huge boost to the open source community.
Please sign it. It only takes 2 minutes.
If you’re not in Germany, sharing it with people who are would still help a lot.
Thank you 🙏
Hmm partly.
I can see that contributing to some projects is for sure beneficial for community or society, but the claim of the petition is much to open.
No assumptions about the topic or use of specific open-source projects.
No assumptions about how much someone would have to contribute to receive Ehrenamt benefits.
No assumptions about if a supporter already is rewarded commercially.
In other words, if I would set up my own project on Github which I can use commercially but by myself hardly work on it, I would receive an Ehrenamt. Makes no sense.
I feel like your concerns aren’t warrented. Have you read the petition and understood Ehrenamt in general? It isn’t some kind of medal of honor and not honored well monetarily.
Yes I red it, how would I be able to tell it’s claim is too open?
Which point do you think does contradict with the petition text or my assumptions about Ehrenamt. It would help if you would be specific.
I thought it was worth supporting because it’s absolutely unlikely that the petition will be implemented exactly as written anyway. But I think it’s a legitimate goal for open-source work to receive some form of recognition and support.