Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing
devblogs.microsoft.com
Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing
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Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing
#2Related:
>I got a 1099-MISC for my hobby of reviewing products on Amazon. Do I have to put it in small business or can I put this in "uncommon income" as the hobby it is?
https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/taxes/discussion/i-got-a-1...
Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing
#3Wait, they managed to get Wing Commander 3 working on Windows 95??
> Bonus chatter: During one of the many iterations of this story being retold, someone remarked that they got a copy of the video game Wing Commander III through this exercise. I immediately remembered that they fulfilled their expectation by filing a bug against Windows 95: When you earned the cloaking device on level 58 or something, you couldn’t activate it.
I never managed (not that it mattered, it took 10-15 minutes to load each mission even on DOS; I imagine it would have been worse under Windows 95).
Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing
#4Wait, they managed to get Wing Commander 3 working on Windows 95?? > Bonus chatter: During one of the many iterations of this story being retold, someone remarked that they got a copy of the video game Wing Commander III through this exercise. I immediately remembered that they fulfilled their expectation by filing a bug against Windows 95: When you earned the cloaking device on level 58 or something, you couldn’t ac…
Would it have been worse? I don’t recall dos games running any slower under windows 95 than under dos.
Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing
#5Huh. I would argue that the software remained the property of Microsoft, and so there were no tax consequences. Presumably if the Windows 95 development manager said, a year later, "Hey guys, time to give all that stuff back," they would. It's just that nobody asked for it.
Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing
#6Interesting.
So the Egghead store in San Jose on Blossom Hill Road had 2 interesting employee perks:
0. Vendor reps, including those from Microsoft, were happy to see you cheap NFR copies ($10-25 USD mostly, with some expensive packages going for $50-150) of almost their entire catalog of retail and semi-retail channel software.
1. Here's the shady one: since 99.9% of software was only "sealed" by shrink wrap and having a shrink wrap machine in the store to fix damaged or packages missing sealing altogether, it was essentially impossible to tell, as an end purchaser, if a particular item had been used and resealed. This was by design to avoid throwing away returned product or sending it back to the manufacturer as a loss. An unofficial benefit was created to deter shrinkage (employee theft) at this store in particular, had an unwritten policy established by the manager that permitted employees to temporarily "borrow" software that wasn't sealed or was already unsealed such as being returned.
I helped closed the store in 1997 after the CompUSA tech hypermart format ate tiny stores like ES that would eventually also meet its own demise.
Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing
#7What does it mean to "keep" the software? You can return the installation media, and say you erased the program, without having erased it.
I would say that if you work for Microsoft and they give you a program free in order to test, then it's not a form of income. The program doesn't represent monetary value in that situation. Microsoft, the copyright holder, is licensing you to have a copy of that program under terms which do not involve exchange of money.
This interpretation could be strengthened if the medium were marked as not for sale or resale.
Something given to you cannot count as income if you cannot resell it, or not legally.
The interpretation could be further strengthened if the gifted software is not entitled to any support.
Now let's think about dual licensing. Suppose you can obtain a proprietary version of a program for $100, or you can get it free under a copyleft license. It's exactly the same program, just packaged with different licenses. Have you received $100 worth of income? Or is it nothing, because the free one comes with no support?
Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing
#8Huh. I would argue that the software remained the property of Microsoft, and so there were no tax consequences. Presumably if the Windows 95 development manager said, a year later, "Hey guys, time to give all that stuff back," they would. It's just that nobody asked for it.
Permanent loan, type of thing. Also, they would likely give the stuff back, stuff being the installation discs. Not actually remove it from their PCs.
Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing
#9What if it's not your employer? If you buy a pizza for $25 and get another one free, is that also $25 income that is only exempt due to de minimis?
Re: Tax consequences of WIN95 team members keeping a piece of software for testing
#10Wait, they managed to get Wing Commander 3 working on Windows 95?? > Bonus chatter: During one of the many iterations of this story being retold, someone remarked that they got a copy of the video game Wing Commander III through this exercise. I immediately remembered that they fulfilled their expectation by filing a bug against Windows 95: When you earned the cloaking device on level 58 or something, you couldn’t ac…
PC specs?