Software Asset Management - Open Licenses
Good afternoon, Habr!
Yesterday I wrote a topic dedicated to software management as an important asset of the enterprise.
If someone has not yet seen - you can find it here - habrahabr.ru/blogs/soft/97343
The topic did not cause a strong stir, but I received a dozen messages from people interested in this topic with a request to continue the story.
')
The first question from which I will continue is the accounting of free and free software in organizations.
first quote from the previous topic:
A little remark - I know what GPL, BSD and other words sympathize with me, but at the moment if we have something like ubunt in the table of the software found, and we have nothing in the table of found licenses and documents with ubuntu there may be problems.
I was asked to reveal this topic a little.
Consider this question on the example of the GPL license. From the point of view of compliance with license rights, nothing prevents us from downloading software under such license, installing and using it. Our legislation takes the GPL license and almost all of its similar common licenses as meeting the mandatory list of criteria:
1) Indication of rights explicitly
2) Specify the territory
3) Specify the expiration date
4) Indication of the price or the order of its determination
5) Indication of the result of intellectual activity
6) Indication of use
the only thing the GPL has no 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 many different laws. And not all of them allow the simple use of software under free licenses without additional gestures.
Example (taking place in life):
Everything that is used by the organization (and, moreover, in commercial activity) should be subject to accounting, accounting, tax and other. Everyone knows that buying paid software is put on the balance or on expenses as one of the assets, in this case intangible. But how many organizations put free software on the balance?
What does the check do? He comes, sees the software under the GPL received for free and is 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 the taxes are naturally not paid.
But how to pay tax from an unknown amount? To calculate the possible value of the product and the amount of taxes, the authorities use a list of similar goods having a price (like a huge catalog, in which customs clearance of imported things is carried out).
Those. If you find a desktop Ubuntu, they claim that you do not pay taxes from donated intangible assets with the sum of a similar product with an amount - for example, Windows Vista.
Those. the organization gets money that is also unpaid taxes, which is much worse than just money.
What is the way out of this?
EVERYTHING software in an organization, regardless of the type of license, must be carried out in accounting with the payment of ALL relevant taxes and have ALL licensing documents (print the text of the GPL and put the company seal under it is not difficult).
What to do with the same Ubuntu? Buy it officially on white papers for 100-200 wooden rubles in the form of a regular disk with a recorded distribution kit and at this cost hang it on the balance sheet of the company.
What to do if you can not buy? We download from the Internet, collect an internal commission (of course, everything is formal, on paper), which fixes the costs of obtaining this software: 2 gigabytes of the Internet - 100 rubles, 1 pig - 15 rubles, after which, for 115 rubles, the software is spent on accounting.
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 deep details of this issue - I recommend to communicate with their accountants and lawyers, let them tell you what they think about this. In any case, how to act in each particular situation is up to them.
Yesterday I wrote a topic dedicated to software management as an important asset of the enterprise.
If someone has not yet seen - you can find it here - habrahabr.ru/blogs/soft/97343
The topic did not cause a strong stir, but I received a dozen messages from people interested in this topic with a request to continue the story.
')
The first question from which I will continue is the accounting of free and free software in organizations.
first quote from the previous topic:
A little remark - I know what GPL, BSD and other words sympathize with me, but at the moment if we have something like ubunt in the table of the software found, and we have nothing in the table of found licenses and documents with ubuntu there may be problems.
I was asked to reveal this topic a little.
Consider this question on the example of the GPL license. From the point of view of compliance with license rights, nothing prevents us from downloading software under such license, installing and using it. Our legislation takes the GPL license and almost all of its similar common licenses as meeting the mandatory list of criteria:
1) Indication of rights explicitly
2) Specify the territory
3) Specify the expiration date
4) Indication of the price or the order of its determination
5) Indication of the result of intellectual activity
6) Indication of use
the only thing the GPL has no 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 many different laws. And not all of them allow the simple use of software under free licenses without additional gestures.
Example (taking place in life):
Everything that is used by the organization (and, moreover, in commercial activity) should be subject to accounting, accounting, tax and other. Everyone knows that buying paid software is put on the balance or on expenses as one of the assets, in this case intangible. But how many organizations put free software on the balance?
What does the check do? He comes, sees the software under the GPL received for free and is 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 the taxes are naturally not paid.
But how to pay tax from an unknown amount? To calculate the possible value of the product and the amount of taxes, the authorities use a list of similar goods having a price (like a huge catalog, in which customs clearance of imported things is carried out).
Those. If you find a desktop Ubuntu, they claim that you do not pay taxes from donated intangible assets with the sum of a similar product with an amount - for example, Windows Vista.
Those. the organization gets money that is also unpaid taxes, which is much worse than just money.
What is the way out of this?
EVERYTHING software in an organization, regardless of the type of license, must be carried out in accounting with the payment of ALL relevant taxes and have ALL licensing documents (print the text of the GPL and put the company seal under it is not difficult).
What to do with the same Ubuntu? Buy it officially on white papers for 100-200 wooden rubles in the form of a regular disk with a recorded distribution kit and at this cost hang it on the balance sheet of the company.
What to do if you can not buy? We download from the Internet, collect an internal commission (of course, everything is formal, on paper), which fixes the costs of obtaining this software: 2 gigabytes of the Internet - 100 rubles, 1 pig - 15 rubles, after which, for 115 rubles, the software is spent on accounting.
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 deep details of this issue - I recommend to communicate with their accountants and lawyers, let them tell you what they think about this. In any case, how to act in each particular situation is up to them.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/97421/
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