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Mastodon becoming a US entity with a neoliberal board of directors and the goal of growth über alles is the issue here folks, not whether Eugen and company are compensated for their work. Of course they should be and well too. Or is that a privilege reserved only for the mediocre yes-people at the Googles and the Facebooks of the world?
Here’s a longer thread I wrote elsewhere. (1/7)
TLDR; this is a monumental fuck-up by the EU, proving it is incapable of retaining alternatives to Silicon Valley even when it’s lucky enough to have them sprout up under its own nose. (We already know it’s incapable of producing them. Although it could, if it wanted to: https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-parliament/)
***
(Replying to a post about Eugen’s salary.) (2/7)
To be fair, it’s at least half of what he’d be getting if he had a job at a well-funded tech company in the mainstream. And, more so at a Google or a Facebook.
This isn’t about Eugen’s compensation. Eugen should be compensated and be able to live a comfortable life given what he does. Heck, asshats who work at Google and Facebook do. Why should people have to sacrifice to do good?
No, this is about Silicon Valley influence, the wrong success criteria, and loss of control. (3/7)
And, if the EU didn’t have its head stuck up its own arse, it would have already made sure that Mastodon could be kept in the EU and those working on it well compensated while also ensuring that the correct success criteria (hint: NOT growth at all costs but decentralisation) were set. But not with this EU Commission and its fixation with the Single Market above all else. (4/7)
They probably see Mastodon becoming a US entity and having Silicon Valley folks on the board as a sign of success when it is an abject failure of the EU, and all its costly PR initiatives (Next Generation Internet, etc.) It’s the Web story with Tim Berners-Lee and CERN all over again. And we know where that neoliberal and corporate capture left us. (5/7)
All that said, the one thing this isn’t about is how much Eugen makes. If we’re saying any old asshat engineer at Google has a right to a comfortable life but folks working on free and open source don’t, let’s not expect too many people to do the latter as a full-time occupation. (6/7)
If, on the other hand, maybe we’d like more folks to contribute to the commons and maybe not even be captured by Silicon Valley how about this radical idea: Fund them so they can live (at least as well) as any mediocre yes-person at a mainstream tech company.
#mastodon #fediverse #FOSS #funding #EU #NextGenerationInternet #NGI #NLNet #EUCommission #DigitalSingleMarket #commons #neoliberalism #SiliconValley #corporateCapture #TimBerbersLee #WorldWideWeb (7/7)
* Fund them so they can live well in the Midwest which costs far less than coastie bullshit living expenses
(#Michigander Here)
Thanks, @aral. Exactly my thoughts.
The @EU_Commission needs to solve the problem upstream. Instead, one day they’ll probably then go and regulate the US company Mastodon.
SMH. It’s a disgrace where European politics are headed in terms of technology. Dinosaurs.
@aral
You seem to have more information than the rest of us? What did the EU exactly do? Because Eugen was lying when he said that the German Tax office retracted the non-profit benefits "without giving a reason". They can't and won't do that! If he says otherwise he either didn't understand and challenge the reason given or he is lying - period.
@blackcoffeerider @aral >[Eugen] was lying when he said that the German Tax office retracted the non-profit benefits "without giving a reason". They can't and won't do that!
If they "can't and won't" give a reason, then how was Eugen lying by saying they didn't?
@blackcoffeerider I don’t have any more info than you do. I don’t know what they did. I know what they didn’t do.
@aral
Then I am not sure if we are even talking about the same thing?
I am talking about the fact that he is trying to open a non profit in the US now after Germany retracted his orgs non profit status. In the two years having that status the entity allegedly did not hand out one(!) donation receipt?
Should they have given him a pass when the construct he created does not meet the tax exemption criteria of a non profit?
@aral yeah, the whole "you shouldn't get paid well for doing something good" e.g. people working for charities, is such an interesting societal reflex. I find it really confusing, but also notice I have some of the same initial gut reaction that I can't really explain.
@aral I saw posts from the Mastodon team saying unequivocally their operations are remaining in the EU and that the US entity exists only to raise funds for development of the Fediverse and Mastodon in particular. Did you read the same posts & doubt them? I'm interested in whether you have info/perspective I don't when you claim it's becoming a US entity.
> I saw posts from the Mastodon team saying unequivocally their operations are remaining in the EU and that the US entity exists only to raise funds for development of the Fediverse and Mastodon in particular.
Can you link those posts here?
@markstahl @aral I didn't take the greatest notes but found two relevant threads for you.
Summary: https://mastodon.sdf.org/@dlakelan/112346692585514461
From Renaud: https://oisaur.com/@renchap/112345373894194833
Thanks. I found the original announcement via Eugene's posts.
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2024/04/mastodon-forms-new-u.s.-non-profit/
@ryanprior Where the money is coming from is what matters. An American company with developers in India is not an Indian company.
@aral money flows are critical but that doesn't seem like a reliable model, since none of the principal staff are employees or contractors of the US org, and the US org doesn't own or hold a stake in the product. Maybe US-CERN is a relevant comparison? Owned and operated in the EU but with a US entity for tax and funding purposes?
cweickhmann @aral Very specifically, this is a German, not an EU, fuck-up. The German tax codes defines a very narrow, and very 1950ies view of what’s a charitable cause and the Federal ministry of finances has not been moving on this point at all. Notably, other charities with political intent had their previously granted status removed (check Campact for instance).
There’s another big issue with this in general, and that’s an EU issue: There is no way to set up an EU-wide charitable cause entity. So you’d have to run 27 entities to get tax deductability (is this a word?) in the entire EU.
While it’s sad to read this, it’s absolutely understandable that they took this step. The implications … yeah, yet another Mozilla or Wikipedia foundation with questionable priorities decoupled from the actual project.
But please bash the German government and only then the EU ;-)
@cweickhmann It’s both. The EU could have stepped in at a moment’s notice and ensured that Mastodon was well funded and didn’t need to look elsewhere.
@aral
That’s not how that works.
@cweickhmann Yes, sadly, you’re right. It’s how it should work.
@aral No, tbh, that’s not how that should work imho either.
They way it should work is for now adding FOSS to the list of charitable causes unter §52 Abgabenordnung. Then work toward a European charitable entity (we already have the SE), say a Fundatio Europaea or (FE). The only reason we don’t have this yet, is because it was not pushed as much as the corporate SE. Once that’s there, all EU member states can extend their regulations on tax reductions for charitable causes to include FEs; and the EU could, where it’s actually collecting taxes (which are very few occasions), do so as well.
@aral In particular, imho Mastodon gGmbH should - together with other FOSS vendors and civil society entities - lobby to change §52 AO [1, 2] to include developing FOSS.
It already lists for example:
- art and culture
- life saving
- internationalism, of tolerance in all areas of culture and of the concept of international understanding
- consumer counselling and consumer protection
and, my favourite: - “sport (chess shall be considered to be a sport)” (this is not a joke: “Schach gilt als Sport”)
They are all each by themselves pretty arbitrary, and one can easily see how Mastodon touches a lot of them but doesn’t really match.
That’s also probably why it was first granted (one interpretation by the office) and then rejected (another, narrower interpretation).
[1] §52 AO english inofficial translation: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_ao/englisch_ao.html#p0441
[2] §52 Abgabenordnung, official, German: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/ao_1977/__52.html
@aral Ffs, “traditional customs including regional carnival” explicitly counts as charitable cause.
@aral Is it time to quit mastodon yet ?
@tchauhan @aral a starting point:
Imagine if you could comment on Instagram from Twitter, or like a YouTube video from Facebook or Reddit.
This is what the Fediverse allows with its counterparts (Pixelfed for photo sharing, Mastodon and other platforms like Misskey or Akkoma for microblogs, PeerTube for videos, Friendica in place of Facebook, Lemmy and kbin for link sharing.)
Given the removal of the not for profit status by the German Tax authority, which may be temporary, it seems prudent to have a US entity.
I don't think it's an EU problem, corporate and tax affairs are for member nations not the overall EU.
It may well be a Good Thing to have a single EU corporate governance and corporate tax regulation but I doubt an open source project will be that persuasive to the general population of the benefits, if any.
@aral
What's going to happen?
Total shock.
Is it too late already to keep Mastadon in the EU sphere?
Jeez. Ḍisaster pending.
@tallship Sorry if it was confusing; I copied the contents of it into the thread.