Sustain Summit 2018 — Session notes: Open Source Public Fund
Sustain Summit 2018 was a one-day event around the sustainability of open source. It was a full day of sessions with a hundred open-source enthusiasts that tackled different aspects: governance, community management, succession plans, financial sustainability, and so on.
Our event organizers deserve applause for their fantastic effort to hold this great event and create a conversation around this crucial topic.
Here are the notes from our session.
Subject
Explore the possibility of using government taxes as an alternative way to create a steady income for open source projects.
Reasoning
Like other goods and services, software purchases are also subject to “Value Added Tax”. VAT compensates for the shared services and infrastructure (like “Roads and Bridges”).
We should recognize open source software as a digital infrastructure that allows other commercial entities to build their business on top of it. Therefore creating a fund through “software targeted” tax could be justifiable.
Outcome
- This fund could consist of government taxes, funds, crowdfunding campaigns, sponsors, etc.
- The fund could distribute the collected taxes through initiatives like Open Collective. Open Collective’s built-in transparency structure makes verifying payments and spending easy.
- Since all open source projects can get an income from this fund, we need to introduce a new metric system to understand the size and the importance of open source projects.
- We could study similar programs/campaigns and contact the government/public agencies to learn more about their experience — for example, the “Public Money, Public Code” campaign.
- These “sustainability” conversations can be extended to other intellectual properties & digital content, next to software — for example, open hardware initiatives, such as Open Source Ecology.
Related links & ideas
Tax incentives for electric vehicles in the EU
One percent for open source
Participants
