Petition to formally recognize open source work as civic service in Germany

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall sentiment

  • Many commenters like the idea of recognizing open source as civic service, especially to address maintainer burnout and lack of support.
  • Others think the benefits of “Ehrenamt” are minimal (small tax allowances, minor cultural discounts), so the proposal is mostly symbolic.
  • A visible minority is outright opposed, seeing this as unnecessary state involvement or a distraction from existing structures (e.g., founding a Verein).

Eligibility and impact criteria

  • Suggested conditions: contributor shouldn’t be sole owner; projects should be “high impact” and not heavily corporate-sponsored; only merged work should count.
  • Pushback:
    • Excluding owners/maintainers would exclude exactly those with the heaviest responsibility and burnout risk.
    • Much critical work (triage, reviews, security, docs) doesn’t show up as merged PRs.
  • Ideas for measuring impact: adoption thresholds, dependency graphs, inclusion in public infrastructure, or curated project lists.
  • Concern that any simple metric (e.g., GitHub stars) is trivial to game and often tied to foreign companies.

Incentives, abuse, and gaming

  • Strong concern that explicit incentives will generate spammy, low-quality contributions, citing Hacktoberfest as precedent.
  • Debate over whether to count unmerged work: some note real effort is often discarded; others warn that rewarding unmerged changes worsens spam.
  • Several argue the program must be designed from the start to disincentivize abuse rather than relying on after-the-fact enforcement.

German legal and bureaucratic context

  • Clarifications:
    • This is about recognizing individual volunteer work (Ehrenamt), not creating non-profit organizations.
    • Benefits include small tax-free expense allowances (e.g., ~840€/year) if you already receive money; no pay for most volunteers.
    • Civic service typically requires a recognized non-profit host; it’s not just “committing from home.”
  • Some argue the right path is existing structures: create a Verein, seek “gemeinnützig” status under current law (often via “education”).
  • Skepticism that petitions meaningfully change policy; thresholds for mandatory debate are high, and such petitions often serve mainly as PR.

Corporations, taxpayers, and exploitation risks

  • One camp worries this is a bad deal for taxpayers and a great deal for big tech: Germany would subsidize OSS that global corporations exploit.
  • Others counter that:
    • The financial scale is tiny (expense reimbursements, not salaries).
    • Germany already extracts substantial tax from tech work and should reinvest in public digital infrastructure.
  • Concern that companies could disguise underpaid labor as “volunteering” to dodge wages and social contributions, though others note reimbursement caps and legal limits (e.g., no volunteering for private firms in some countries).

“Open source” vs public good

  • Disagreement on whether all open source is inherently a public good:
    • Supporters say making code available for free is, by definition, public benefit.
    • Critics point to open-source ransomware, trivial or abandoned projects, and “digital litter” that imposes real costs.
  • Some suggest tying eligibility to:
    • Stricter definitions (FSF-style “free software” or European licenses like EUPL).
    • Explicit contribution to the common good rather than mere openness.

Alternative and complementary ideas

  • Proposals include:
    • Amending tax law (§52 AO) to treat support of open source itself as charitable.
    • Funding open source like scientific research via dedicated state programs and institutions (with examples of existing German FOSS charities and initiatives).
    • Focusing on “free software” rather than all “open source” as the recognized civic contribution.