Re: [libreplanet-discuss] a free income for software developers?

[Dave Rolek]

On 06/05/2016 12:34 PM, Daniel Pocock wrote:
> Switzerland has just had a referendum on giving all citizens a free
> basic income of about CHF 2,500 per month (equivalent to USD 2,500 per
> month)
>
> Should countries consider a similar scheme, but exclusively for software
> developers who create things at their own discretion under a free
> license for the benefit of the whole economy?
>
> Is anybody aware of any scheme or employment that approximates this
> concept?  e.g. Google gives their staff 20% of their time to code a
> project of their own choosing.
>
The concept you mentioned here with google is called "open allocation"
[0], and there's definitely other companies doing something similar (and
to other percentages or other schemes).

However, I believe most companies doing this will own the copyright of
the work produced (by their default employment agreement, *which is
negotiable*), and thus it could get a bit complicated depending on what
you want to do in that time.

Nonetheless, it's an important thing to look out for, especially if you
make it a formal part of your employment agreements and modify them to
preserve your ability to contribute to free software.  (*Definitely* see
LibrePlanet 2016 talks [6][7])


A different thing entirely might be to explore these:
"B corps" [1] - have a fundamental "benefit declaration" (my wording),
i.e. they have a legally protected purpose to create general public benefit;
Community interest companies "CIC" (UK) [2] - I know little about them;
Low-profit limited liability company "L3C" (US) [3] - I know little
about these, too;
or non-profits [4]

While I only have a high-level understanding of most of these, I would
expect that at least some of these would be able to support
free-software development as a public benefit.  It also doesn't take
much to see that many of the free-software development organizations are
nonprofits (e.g. FSF, Conservancy, EFF, The Tor Project, ...) with paid
employees (e.g. [5]), so it is a viable route, although it might be
tough to start up / get into.


Best,
dmr


---
references are organized by topic... not by body-reference order,
although secondly by body-reference order

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_allocation

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_interest_company
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-profit_limited_liability_company
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonprofit_organization

[5] https://www.torproject.org/about/jobs-ooni.html.en

[6]
https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/collection/companies-free-software-and-you/
 
-  slide 24, video @ 27:55 and then some further info in the questions
(but the whole talk is good!)
[7]
https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/advocate-for-yourself-at-work-use-more-free-software-and-keep-contributing-to-the-community/