June 25, 2010 at 13:58Software Asset Management - Open Licenses
Good afternoon, Habr!
Yesterday I wrote a topic dedicated to software management as an important asset of the enterprise.
If anyone has not seen it, you can find it here - habrahabr.ru/blogs/soft/97343 The
topic did not cause much stir, but I received a dozen messages from people interested in this topic asking me to continue the story.
The first question I will continue with is the accounting for free and free software in organizations.
first quote from the previous topic:
A little remark - I know what the GPL, BSD, and other words sympathetic to me are, but at the moment if we have something like ubunta in the table of found software, and we do not have any licenses and documents in the table nothing mentioning ubuntu - we may have problems.
I was asked to reveal this topic a little.
Consider this issue using the GPL as an example. From the point of view of compliance with license rights, nothing prevents us from downloading software under such a license, installing and using it. Our legislation accepts the GPL license and almost all similar widespread licenses as meeting the mandatory list of criteria:
1) Indication of rights in explicit form
2) Indication of territory
3) Indication of validity
4) Indication of price or procedure for determining it
5) Indication of the result of intellectual activity
6) The
only way the GPL has an indication of the use of the territory is not an explicit indication of the territory, but it is considered international, so there are no particular questions.
But in addition to part 4 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which regulates all copyrights and life with them, we still have a lot of different laws. And not all of them allow the simple use of software under free licenses without additional gestures.
Example (which has taken place in life):
Everything that is used by the organization (and even more so in commercial activities) should be subject to accounting, accounting, tax and others. Everyone knows that when buying paid software it is put on the balance sheet or on expenses as one of the assets, in this case intangible. But do many organizations balance free software?
What does the check do? He comes, sees the software under the GPL received for free and not listed on the documents and says - this is a gratuitously received intangible asset. And with them, the organization must pay taxes (you can google about this or ask your accountants). And taxes are naturally not paid.
But how to pay tax on an unknown amount? To calculate the possible cost of the product and the amount of taxes, the authorities use a list of similar goods with a price (like a huge catalog, according to which customs clearance of things imported into the country is carried out).
Those. Having found your Ubuntu desktop, you are presented with a claim for tax evasion from gratuitously received intangible assets with the amount of a similar product with an amount - for example, Windows Vista.
Those. the organization gets on money, which is also unpaid taxes, which is much worse than just money.
Which one is the solution?
EVERYTHING available in the organization’s software, regardless of the type of license, must be bookkeeping with ALL relevant taxes paid and ALL licensed documents (it’s not difficult to print the GPL text and put the company’s seal under it).
What to do with the same Ubuntu? Buy it officially on white papers for 100-200 wooden rubles in the form of a regular disc with a recorded distribution and at this cost hang it on the balance sheet of the enterprise.
What if there is no opportunity to buy? We download from the Internet, collect an internal commission (of course everything is formal, on paper), which records the costs of obtaining this software: 2 gigabytes of Internet - 100 rubles, 1 blank - 15 rubles, after which software is carried out for accounting for 115 rubles.
After these simple but important actions, we save the company from one of the serious risks.
ps The purpose of this topic is not to publish the only correct interpretation of the situation, but only to draw public attention to a possible "thin spot".
If anyone is interested in the in-depth details of this issue - I recommend communicating with their accountants and lawyers, let them tell you what they think about this. In any case, what to do in each specific situation is up to them to decide.
Yesterday I wrote a topic dedicated to software management as an important asset of the enterprise.
If anyone has not seen it, you can find it here - habrahabr.ru/blogs/soft/97343 The
topic did not cause much stir, but I received a dozen messages from people interested in this topic asking me to continue the story.
The first question I will continue with is the accounting for free and free software in organizations.
first quote from the previous topic:
A little remark - I know what the GPL, BSD, and other words sympathetic to me are, but at the moment if we have something like ubunta in the table of found software, and we do not have any licenses and documents in the table nothing mentioning ubuntu - we may have problems.
I was asked to reveal this topic a little.
Consider this issue using the GPL as an example. From the point of view of compliance with license rights, nothing prevents us from downloading software under such a license, installing and using it. Our legislation accepts the GPL license and almost all similar widespread licenses as meeting the mandatory list of criteria:
1) Indication of rights in explicit form
2) Indication of territory
3) Indication of validity
4) Indication of price or procedure for determining it
5) Indication of the result of intellectual activity
6) The
only way the GPL has an indication of the use of the territory is not an explicit indication of the territory, but it is considered international, so there are no particular questions.
But in addition to part 4 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which regulates all copyrights and life with them, we still have a lot of different laws. And not all of them allow the simple use of software under free licenses without additional gestures.
Example (which has taken place in life):
Everything that is used by the organization (and even more so in commercial activities) should be subject to accounting, accounting, tax and others. Everyone knows that when buying paid software it is put on the balance sheet or on expenses as one of the assets, in this case intangible. But do many organizations balance free software?
What does the check do? He comes, sees the software under the GPL received for free and not listed on the documents and says - this is a gratuitously received intangible asset. And with them, the organization must pay taxes (you can google about this or ask your accountants). And taxes are naturally not paid.
But how to pay tax on an unknown amount? To calculate the possible cost of the product and the amount of taxes, the authorities use a list of similar goods with a price (like a huge catalog, according to which customs clearance of things imported into the country is carried out).
Those. Having found your Ubuntu desktop, you are presented with a claim for tax evasion from gratuitously received intangible assets with the amount of a similar product with an amount - for example, Windows Vista.
Those. the organization gets on money, which is also unpaid taxes, which is much worse than just money.
Which one is the solution?
EVERYTHING available in the organization’s software, regardless of the type of license, must be bookkeeping with ALL relevant taxes paid and ALL licensed documents (it’s not difficult to print the GPL text and put the company’s seal under it).
What to do with the same Ubuntu? Buy it officially on white papers for 100-200 wooden rubles in the form of a regular disc with a recorded distribution and at this cost hang it on the balance sheet of the enterprise.
What if there is no opportunity to buy? We download from the Internet, collect an internal commission (of course everything is formal, on paper), which records the costs of obtaining this software: 2 gigabytes of Internet - 100 rubles, 1 blank - 15 rubles, after which software is carried out for accounting for 115 rubles.
After these simple but important actions, we save the company from one of the serious risks.
ps The purpose of this topic is not to publish the only correct interpretation of the situation, but only to draw public attention to a possible "thin spot".
If anyone is interested in the in-depth details of this issue - I recommend communicating with their accountants and lawyers, let them tell you what they think about this. In any case, what to do in each specific situation is up to them to decide.