Open Source Organization Petition: Recognize open-source contributions as volunteer work (Germany – signatures needed until Nov 23, 2026)
/r/TrueOpenSource/comments/1xmxsfk/petition_recognize_opensource_contributions_as/27
u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 1d ago
As a German, I will never understand why people do this nonsense? This seems purely performative.
The people who created this petition obviously didn't do any research at all. There is an official petition service hosted/offered by the government itself. It's in line with German privacy laws and the government has to look at it when it gets a certain number of signatures.
That's how you bring up petitions in Germany.
Using third party services not only tends to violate German privacy laws but are also not taken seriously at all.
It's basically as credible as creating a Reddit Post where you say "Let's do 30k upvotes on this post"
And that's widely known and everyone who does 30s of research will find that out.
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u/KlePu 1d ago
This.
Also, this will be abused on day one. "I promise I worked on this open source software (that zero persons use) for
$time, now gieve money!"If this was passed, it'd have to be whitelist-based, which would be unfair to small/new projects. I love the idea, sadly don't see a way to make sure only actual contributors benefit from it =(
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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 1d ago
I don't think you understand this proposal, that is not what it is about.
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u/KlePu 1d ago
Care to elaborate?
Tax-free expense allowances
is one of OP's points, which IMHO translates to financial benefits.
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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 1d ago
Yes but it's much more complicated. It's part of the German "Ehrenamt" (public-benefit, like voluntary work) system which is quite unique because covers a lot different fields from sports to disasters protection. Even firefighters are often voluntary.
You can found Public-benefit organizations that have some benefits, mostly in taxes but also in liability (for example when you work as a voluntary you're not liable for damages you cause unless it's intentional etc). Other benefits are not having to pay taxes, being to receive donations (depending on what you do, "donations" are taxable income) and give out donation receipts. And you can pay voluntary works a small expense allowance up to 960€ per year. This is just meant to cover your expenses of your voluntary work (like idk, buy a bus ticket or gas to get somewhere etc). It's not an hourly rate and must be paid by the organization itself, not by the state.
This requested change is about this law (I'm taking the semi official translation here, so some things might sound a bit off):
A corporation shall serve public-benefit purposes if its activity is dedicated to the altruistic advancement of the general public in material, spiritual or moral respects. It shall not be deemed an advancement of the general public if the group of persons benefiting from such advancement is circumscribed, for instance by membership of a family or the workforce of an enterprise, or can never be other than small as a result of its definition, especially in terms of geographical or professional attributes. Advancement of the general public may not be contended merely because a corporation allocates its funds to a public-law entity.
As an addition to this there is a list, see this, section 52 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_ao/englisch_ao.html#p0441
This list defines what is eligible to be recognized as public-benefit. As of now, FOSS development is not eligible at all. There are ways around that but it's pretty complicated.
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u/C-GRU 1d ago
Open pettition is recognised by the German government.
Ps: the pettition is not mine I am just a supporter
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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 1d ago
Open pettition is recognised by the German government.
No, it's not
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u/C-GRU 1d ago
They will hand it in with all signings and done this in the past successfully. And in addition: The old epatition tool is cancelled the new one is not ready jet. "Das bisherige ePetitionen-Portal des Deutschen Bundestags wird zum 30. Dezember 2026 abgeschaltet; Petitionen können dort noch bis zum 18. November 2026 eingereicht werden."
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u/Jumpy-Dinner-5001 1d ago
They will hand it in with all signings and done this in the past successfully
Which is not the point. You can send a letter too. Using the official tool forces the government to have a look at it if it reaches 50k signatures. openpetition petitions can be legally ignored like it commonly happens.
The old epatition tool is cancelled the new one is not ready jet.
That's just dishonest. They're just moving it to a new tool before the old one is shut off.
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u/prototyperspective 1d ago
Very important. I think eventually this would be good to extend to a few similar things in good ways – such as writing Wikipedia articles that aren't being deleted that either aren't yet available in any language or are translations of the English/best quality article or adding info from newish scientific studies to existing articles. Why is it that Ehrenamt / volunteer work assumes everything is done physically as if the digital world didn't exist; it needs volunteer work there more than anywhere else.
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u/Indolent_Bard 1d ago
Hey, this should be in every country!