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NY Bill Would Provide Tax Credit For Open Source Contributors
An anonymous reader writes: For many years, the open source software community has made the distinction between "free as in freedom" (the software can be used or modified as the user sees fit) and "free as in beer" (the software is available at no cost). Some have added a third type of free: "free as in puppy". Like a puppy, adopting open source software has ongoing cost. What many people don't consider is that developing open source software has a cost, too. Many developers purchase extra hardware for testing or pay for code hosting, a website, etc. A pending bill in the New York Senate aims to help offset those costs. The bill, sponsored by Senator Daniel Squadron (D-26th) and co-sponsored by Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D-36th), would provide a tax credit of 20% of "expenses associated with the development of open source and free software", up to an annual maximum of $200. Based on a 2006 report by the Center for American Progress, this bill appears to be the first of its kind introduced to a state legislature.
I'd rather they require that any software developed at taxpayer expense be released as open source.
$200? Why bother with the paperwork? Only, now there will be more paperwork, as the state spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement the program and add the little checkbox to a form somewhere.
My real take is even more cynical: this will be sold to the public as "$200 for independent open source software developers" but the final version will have a mysterious change in it that allows corporations with thousands of machines running some little piece of open source code to take a couple of million-dollar tax credits for "contributing to open source". In fact, the presser the politicians put out is little more than a sales brochure: "I'm offering up a tax credit for open source contributors (wink wink) - please contact my office (write a big check) if you want to know more (get in on the tax break for your company)."
On top of what you say, there are lots of places in the government that focus on tech transfer. The very essence of it is that the government and one or more private entities jointly share in the development cost and risk. The government then usually gets some perpetual royalty-free right to the product of the endeavor, while the commercial interest gets the right to further develop the technology and market/sell to the commercial public. There is almost always a requirement that those two don't interfere with each other. The biggest concern is usually on the part of the commercial interests which worry that the government will give away the technology at some later time, thereby destroying their market. So, there is usually a prohibition on just that sort of thing when a tech transfer takes place.
To make the "all software developed at tax payer expense open source" thing come true, the government would have to completely re-think the idea of how tech transfer works. Don't get me wrong. I am in favor making as much government-funded software as possible open source. I'm just saying it is more complex than that.