Comment by CBLT
6 months ago
You're right, the law text doesn't specifically call out the Windows operating system or the Linux operating system. The example you gave of Open Source Windows drivers is valid.
The Grandparent's point about that "it double-dings open source developers" is still correct and poignant even with this clarification.
> The Grandparent's point about that "it double-dings open source developers" is still correct and poignant even with this clarification.
I feel like I'm missing what subset of people this is, exactly. We're talking about businesses here that would struggle with these tax rules. Which I guess is, mainly, contractors or startups. How common is it for such businesses to release their software as open-source, vs. as closed-source? I would've (naively) expected most paid OSS developers to be funded by large organizations/businesses that have plenty of money to fund them, not small businesses/contractors that would be severely impacted by this law. Is this actually a large set of people?
There are lots of small OSS businesses that are contractors to the big companies you mention. My go-to example is Igalia, who work on web browser and other core OSS tech, but there lots of others, some mentioned on the FOSSjobs wiki.
https://www.igalia.com/ https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources